


Into the Dark

by icestorm1196



Category: Sherlock (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Angel!Lock, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Multi, One-Sided Relationship, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-25 19:28:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icestorm1196/pseuds/icestorm1196
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is an angel, he always has been.  James, now Moriarty, Fell a long time ago.  He's decided to pay Sherlock back for betraying him long ago.  He kidnaps, and tortures him, body and mind.<br/>What is left is a broken husk of what he used to be.<br/>The story follows Johns attempts to find him, flashbacks into the two years Sherlock was held prisoner, and the attempt to bring Sherlock back.</p><p>Few scenes of explicit sexual content, rated more for violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prologue for a much longer piece. It will likely be the shortest chapter.
> 
> Characters are BBC Sherlock  
> Most of the demon/monster characteristics are taken from CW's Supernatural. No characters from that show are used.

_-No. You’re boring. An angel._  
 _-That may be, but don’t think for a second that I am like the rest of them. You want me to go with -you now, I shall. Do whatever you like with me. But you will leave them alone._  
 _-For now. We’ll see how….interesting you stay._  
 _-Let me…let me say goodbye. I’ll go with you._  
 _-Hurry then._  
 _-John. John, this….this is my…note. That’s what people do, is it not? Leave a note... It’s…true. I’m a fraud. A…a fake. Everything the papers said is true… I…invented Jim Moriarty. I…Goodbye, John._

The warehouse was decrepit. Sherlock hadn’t even known it existed. On the outskirts of the city, near the Thames, the abandoned building was well removed from everything. “And don’t think screaming will help you. I’ve warded the place. Even your true voice won’t alert the humans, should any happen by.” He shoved Sherlock into the warehouse. There was a twinge inside him, a dull thumping and a pain in his chest. Moriarty was grinning at him. He said a few words, too low and fast for Sherlock to hear them, and suddenly, the pain was intense. He fell to his knees, gasping. It hurt. Sherlock was a bit too stunned to even really feel the pain at first. “Isn’t that something?” gloated Moriarty. “I’ve learned things. Very interesting things, when I fell. I’ve just muted your grace,” he laughed. “You will feel **everything** by your human vessel. What I do to it,” he backhanded Sherlock across the face, snapping his head to one side and leaving a red mark, “you will feel. I’ve tied you in and trapped you.” He grinned. “But your grace isn’t gone. No. Because then, I wouldn’t be able to do **this** ” and with a flick of his hand and a few new words….words Sherlock didn’t understand, there was a terrible ripping and tearing, and he screamed as his wings were made to manifest. He hadn’t even known that was possible. Apparently it was. He writhed on the floor, tearing at his back. His shirt was torn where the wings had been forced through it, hanging off his back in shreds. He managed to push himself to his knees, when he noticed a large black blur heading for him. Then everything went dark.

When he woke he was in a large cage, wrists shackled, the chain stretching to the wall. His feet were bare and his shirt was gone. Moriarty stood grinning at the door. “I’ve taken your phone,” he said. “And I’ve warded the place carefully, as I mentioned before. So your prayers won’t work. I said I was going to ruin you. And I aim to do just that.” He tapped the crowbar against his hand. “The nice part about simply muting your grace and not getting rid of it entirely or….ripping it out, is that I won’t kill you by accident.” He grinned. “I have a lot of toys Sherlock. A lot of helpers. This is going to be fun.  
Sherlock snapped his wings proudly behind him, still visible. His feet were beginning to cramp, which confused him. That was new. Feeling cold. It was near winter, and the windows were all open or broken. He didn’t take his eyes away from Moriarty. The Fallen angel grinned at him and threw the crowbar like a javelin. Sherlock managed to duck it, but that meant that he missed the knives thrown just after he ducked, thrown at an inhuman speed that Sherlock was currently incapable of. The end result was a knife plunged hilt deep into each wing, pinning him to the wall, mostly crouched on the floor. He screamed. The blades were some sort of angel blade though they burned like nothing he had ever felt. “Angel blades, tempered in hellfire,” said Moriarty, as though reading his mind. “They’ll poison you _quick_. Bet you don’t like them.” Sherlock managed to stand, tried to lunge for Moriarty, but the blades stopped him. They were far enough apart from each other that he couldn’t even pull them out of the wall. He didn’t try to lunge again, though he stood, watching the Fallen angel through furious eyes. “Not uncomfortable, are we Sherlock?” he sneered. “We’re just getting started.”


	2. Dreams--John's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Series of dreams in the years before John found Sherlock,  
> and when he found him.

Sherlock Holmes had been missing, presumed dead for more than two years. A few people had never stopped searching. 

 

John Watson’s first dream came within the first three months. He was sitting, alone in the flat and suddenly Sherlock was there, looking surprised, coat firmly buttoned around him. “Oh,” he’d said. “Finally, I didn’t expect it to work. We must be asleep at the same time. I’ve been trying for ages you know.”  
“What?” John had asked.  
“Nothing, it’s not important. Look, he’ll realize that I’m here, you have to get…” and a thick black smoke had wrapped around Sherlock’s mouth, sliding up his nose, then enveloped his body, leaving nothing but widened eyes behind, and then it flew through the wall. John had woken up gasping. 

The second dream had come six months after that. He’d been in the flat again, when Sherlock’s disapproving tones pierced his thoughts. “Really? The flat again? This is the first place he’ll look.” John’s head had snapped up, and Sherlock was sitting in his chair, looking distinctly more disheveled than the last time. He was tired, and he moved gingerly. He still wore the coat, as though he didn’t know it was August. Then of course, John remembered it was a dream. That it didn’t matter what season it was, because Sherlock wasn’t there. Still, it felt like he was. John felt questions bubbling up, past his lips.  
“What’s happened? Are you alright?” Stupid question. He should ask where he was, but Sherlock was already answering. “It’s…nothing. Few broken bones, I think. Cracked ribs?. Burned…appendages. I’ll be alright. Well. Presuming I don’t die of exposure. The water….” And the smoke covered him again, dragging him away more roughly than before. 

The third dream was less than a month later.  
“Sherlock!” John said. They were on a beach. Sherlock looked much worse than he had before.  
“This isn’t good anymore,” he said to John. “He gets very angry. And then he has _fun.”_  
“What…Who’s he? Are you with Moriarty? Is he holding you prisoner?”  
“Don’t ask questions,” said Sherlock tightly. “He’ll know. Just…talk to me. Tell me….what has been happening?” So… John started to talk. About work, about Molly and Lestrade and Mrs Hudson, about looking for Sherlock. Sherlock stared at John intently, never blinking.  
“Remember metal…?” he asked suddenly, but was cut off when the roiling black smoke dragged him away again, faster, rougher this time, than before, towards the sea, and then under the waves. John awoke choking, tasting sea water.

The fourth dream was a few months later. Sherlock had just stared at him, he looked beaten, coat torn, face bloody. He couldn’t be cajoled to speak at all. He just stared at John. It was the most unnerving dream he’d had yet. Though this time, he woke before the black smoke pulled Sherlock away. These weren’t _normal_ dreams. He knew that by now. Somehow, Sherlock was trying to reach him from wherever he was. John wasn’t sure how he felt about that. If it was even believable.

In the fifth dream, almost exactly two years after his disappearance, they were in the flat again, Sherlock lay on the floor, curled up in a ball. He caught sight of John and started to laugh, loud, hysterical laughs that turned into screams. Nothing John did could calm him. This time, the black smoke didn’t drag Sherlock back. A massive, hideous dog did. It slashed at Sherlock’s chest with a paw, then grabbed him round the shoulder with its mouth started to shake him frantically, as though it meant to tear him apart, and both disappeared. It was the worst dream John had ever had, and he woke smelling blood.

The sixth dream came in conjunction with a phone call. In the dream, Sherlock didn’t appear at all, just his voice, screaming out for John. For Mycroft. Over and over in his head. John had been roused out of bed, throwing on clothes. He felt pulled in a way he couldn’t explain, hailing a cab, and telling him turn by turn where to go. Then Lestrade had called, sounding shaken and terrified. He refused to explain over the phone, just gave John the address, told him to get there. John told him that he was already on his way.  
The warehouse was almost frightening looking. Lestrade had told him to go to the second story. The smell hit him immediately. It smelled of sulfur, but also of urine and excrement. The first thing he saw was the cage. Three sided, the fourth attached to the concrete wall. The second thing he noticed was the dead man inside the cage, impeccable suit stained slightly, but not much, with blood, what looked like a sword of some kind sticking out of his neck. The third and last thing he noticed was the one he was trying the most not to look at--something alive and in the cage. It was hunched over in the corner, humanoid, but for the two wings arching from it’s back, through the bars of the cage, pinned to the wall with knives. Its hands were shackled close together. There was a collar around its neck, and a chain reaching from the collar to the wall. The creature was naked and shaking, and dirty, skeletal in frame, crouched in a tiny ball, face hidden. Yet John had a terrible feeling he knew what…who, it was. A look at Lestrade confirmed it. 

“Why haven’t your removed the knives?” he asked. Lestrade grit his teeth.  
“We tried.”  
John strode over, ignoring the warning from Lestrade. Sherlock looked up and started to…well, to be honest, John didn’t know what he started to do. The sounds coming out of his mouth were not human. John was forced to his knees. Somewhere, a previously unbroken window shattered. The room seemed to vibrate. He forced himself to stand to move to the wing, and jerk the blade out. The bars of the cage shook, though they didn’t break. There were odd markings and symbols on them that John couldn’t quite make out as he rounded the cage slowly. Plaster started to rain down on them. Lestrade beat John to the second knife, pulling it out. The wings snapped into the cage, but seemed to hang wrong. Bone stuck out of them at odd angles. Badly broken. The screaming stopped. 

“Sherlock?” he asked carefully. The caged man slowly raised his head. John stepped closer to the cage, and Sherlock lunged at him, all but snarling, though he was brought to a choking halt by the collar and chain, little rivulets of blood began running down his neck. “Sherlock it’s me, it’s John,” he said, desperately. Sherlock stumbled back a moment, then shook his head and lunged at him again, ignoring the collar pressing against his throat, clutching at the bars. 

“You don’t hurt him,” he hissed. “You _don’t_. Hurt me instead, hurt me….you promised” He fell backward, then collapsed, hard enough to crack his knee, which he ignored. John had leapt backward when Sherlock had lunged, but he stepped forward again. Sherlock shoved himself back, scrambling into the corner of the cage. “No! False!” he screamed. “You promised!” Someone had tried to go around to the side Sherlock was, but he jerked away from the wall, leaping back, barely managing to catch himself on feet nearly black with grime. “No!” he screamed again, eyes wide, terrified. “No! Away! False, false, false! You can’t _trick_ me!” He collapsed again, murmuring frantically to himself, eyes darting in all directions. He looked for all the world like an animal, wings flaring out on occasion. John didn’t think he realized they were free. He wasn’t moving outside the limited range the pinned appendages would have given him, not after the initial lunge. 

Lestrade moved slowly toward the cage, touching the bars. Sherlock became frantic, screaming, flinging himself against the walls. He hid behind the wings, though the motion seemed to cause him pain. Lestrade stepped away, and Sherlock seemed to calm. At least, he stopped screaming. His eyes darted wildly around the room again; then he caught sight of John. 

He pointed at him, and, reminiscent of the dream, began to laugh. “False! You won’t trick me again,” he declared, “False, false falsefalsefalsefalse…” he kept going, slipping into a crouch, rocking, pulling at his hair.  
“Call Mycroft,” said John, finally.  
“We _tried”_ said Lestrade. “I must have tried a dozen times, he won’t answer his phone, his assistant won’t answer _her_ phone. We can’t get to him.”  
John frowned, then winced as he heard Sherlock’s brother’s name echoing in his head. _Mycroft he thought,_ where the hell are you? And then he was there, as though he’d always been. He raised a hand, and the cage was gone. John’s mouth fell open. Mycroft raised his hand again, and Sherlock was clean, though far from whole. Scars crisscrossed everywhere along his body, detailing nearly unimaginable tortures. Some fresh injuries were still bleeding. Mycroft frowned. Sherlock saw Mycroft and tried to crawl away, but Mycroft put a hand to Sherlock’s head, and he collapsed, unconscious. 

The officers, aside from Sally Donovan and Lestrade started treating the scene far more normally. “They’ll make the report,” said Mycroft. “They found him. Caged and abused. He’s been taken to a private hospital, and his captor is dead.” The four of them were standing in Mycroft’s house. Sherlock was lying in Mycrofts arms. Then, both were gone again. Lestrade felt sick. Mycroft reappeared. “We have much to discuss,” he said stiffly. “This way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this story isn't really going to be crazy with chronology.
> 
> It is going to go back and forth with Sherlock's recovery process, and the tortures he faced under Moriarty.
> 
> If something crazy explicit is going to be in a chapter, I'll post it at the beginning.


	3. Finding the Journals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John, Lestrade, and Sally get an overview of what Sherlock and Mycroft are, their history.
> 
> Journals detailing Sherlock's ordeal are found, and the group begin going through them
> 
> Characters are not my own, though the situation is.

John felt dead inside. “What…Mycroft, what…?” he couldn’t complete a sentence. A brandy was shoved into his hand, and he was drinking it.   
“For the shock,” said a smooth voice, and he glanced over and saw that Lestrade and Sally were still there, that they had their own drinks, looking just as dazed as he felt. Mycroft stood, leaning against his desk, looking decidedly unruffled. At least, at first glance. As the roaring in John’s ears grew muffled, as he remembered how to breathe properly and as his heart rate returned to normal, he noted that Mycroft’s face was too blank, his eyes worried, though no trace of it showed on the rest of his features. He took a shaky breath.  
“Mycroft. Please. Explain,” he said. Mycroft sighed.  
“Sherlock…and I are not human,” he said. “Nor was the man you knew as James Moriarty. We…are angels. Or rather, Sherlock and I are. James…was Fallen.”  
“Angels?” asked Lestrade, hollowly.   
“Not quite what you’d pictured, I assume. “We are not quite as depicted by Renaissance painters. I assure you, Sherlock is actually one of the nicer ones, believe it or not.” Sally managed a choked sort of noise. “Do not mock, Ms Donovan. I have kept your memory intact because I believe my brother actually rather likes you in his own way, at least, he respects you more than he does most of your co-workers, and also because I needed someone in the Yard to back up the Detective Inspector here, when he gives a falsified report if people start asking questions.” She swallowed. “Thank you. Now. Do not ask me what happened to my brother. I was not there, I do not know. That warehouse, the cage, both were warded. He couldn’t get out, and he couldn’t be heard, not by anyone. If someone had happened to be able to get inside the warehouse, which they wouldn’t have, the warding was too strong, they wouldn’t have been able to see or hear him, if they passed within inches of the cage. I do not know what happened, and I do not know the extent of his injuries, though it seems they were severe. His grace…his power, was…muted, I suppose. It’s the only way he could have sustained some of his injuires. I do not know how, though I aim to find out. This seems to mean that he actually needed food and warmth, and sleep, especially in the cold. It furthermore seems, that these were all denied him rather consistently.” There was a knock on the door. “Come in.” The woman John knew as Anthea came in.  
“Dina*. What have you found?”  
“We are still looking sir. We have found a selection of tapes and journals, detailing the events of the past two and a half years.” She set a box on the desk. Two more dark suited men followed her and set two more boxes on the desk. “It seems he was fastidious in chronicling everything he did.” Mycroft picked up the first journal. He set his jaw.  
“Have you read any of this?” She shook her head.  
“No sir. Nor have we viewed the tapes. They were already in the boxes. I think he meant to send them eventually. He wanted us to know how…” she stopped. Mycroft nodded.   
“You are excused.” The three gave him a quick nod and filed out of the room. “Dina, do check on how Isda** is doing with Sherlock, will you?” Ameriel nodded, and closed the door behind her. 

The boxes stood on Mycrofts desk like a challenge. “I will view the tapes,” he said. “If the three of you would like to start reading the journals…I suppose I will not stop you. We will….keep each other informed. I will stop by, every so often, to see what you have found and compare.”

John stood. “Could I…could I see him?” Mycroft shook his head.   
“I think, for the time being, that is probably unwise. He did not react very well to your presence before, you may recall.” John flushed. Mycroft sighed. “Look. You may remain here. Read the journal, if you wish. I will tell you when you may see him. You two,” he added to Lestrade and Sally. “Go back to the yard and fill out the report. I will check in shortly.”

 

John sat in a rather uncomfortable arm chair, journal resting on his lap. It felt wrong somehow. He touched it with shaking hands, and, almost unwillingly opened it.

_Going to have such fun with dear Sherlock. It’s quite entertaining, what he will do when precious John is threatened. Fun to threaten others too, but his eyes don’t get as stormy. Only been a day, and still, fun.  
Made him tell John he was going to kill himself. Took him here, and introduced him to his new home. Lovely cage. Muted his grace of course, can’t have him actually comfortable. Human bodies are so fragile. Sad to be dependent on them really, but strip him and chain him up and force him to feel it…lovely. And my gorgeous knives in his wings too. See how fast we can burn him up. I did promise him.  
Weather is cold for this time of year. Made sure warehouse will not be comfortable. Windows open or broken to let in elements. And no heating anyway, always a plus. Could see our breath as soon as we entered. He was already shivering when I left. His feet were turning blue. Beautiful._

John shuddered. He was already horrified. He forced himself to keep reading, feeling sicker and sicker the more he read.

Sherlock crouched on the floor, legs cramping, feet numb. His arms were tucked tight against his chest. He would have tucked his wings around him for added warmth, but the knives were still there, pinning the wings above his head, making it impossible for him to sit fully. His eyes were closed and he leaned against the wall. His stomach rumbled. Stop it he told himself. He had never needed food before. He hated relying on it. And James…well, he went by Moriarty now, he didn’t seem to care. Of course he didn’t care, he loved it. The fact that Sherlock was hungry, always hungry. He’d only been here a week. So far, it hadn’t been _torture_ so much as simply miserable. He was always cold, and October was slowly sliding into November. He’d been fed three times. An apple, the first time. And some sort of tasteless muck the next two. 

His wings would be unpinned for brief periods of time, enough to get some feeling back into them, back into his body before Moriarty came and had target practice with them again. It was less target practice really, and more him entering the room, gleefully, and saying, “Come on Sherlock, stand up, wings up and out.” If Sherlock was too slow, or if he refused, or asked a question, Moriarty would sigh. “I really thought you’d hold out longer. I think I might send one of my little pets for yours now,” and Sherlock would stand, glaring. And then, before he could even see it, two knives would be hilt deep in his wings, and he’d be pinned to the wall again. Sometimes, he couldn’t even crouch, depending on where they landed. He’d stay standing for hours. Once, for two days, he couldn’t move. His legs had been positively shaking, though they had long since gone numb. Still, he had endured worse. It had been a long time ago, to be sure, but he had endured worse. He was sure of it.

The whip, therefore, in its first appearance, was a surprise. He’d yelled and stood, and Moriarty was there with a whip in his had. Sherlock’s shoulder had split. 

“You like it?” Moriarty had asked. “I got it made special. There are two tails, you see. One is a regular whip tail, and the other is made from a rather large sting ray.. Lovely little spikes you see?” He’d flicked it again, and Sherlock’s hands came up automatically to protect him. The whip smacked his arm, but the second tail managed to graze his face, just under his eye. “Ruin my fun,” Moriarty pouted. Then the whips struck, three, four times in quick succession. Stomach, legs, around to the back, stomach again. Sherlock had managed to bite back a yell, but just barely. 

Moriarty had sighed. Then snapped his fingers. Four demons appeared, eyes black, mouths open in delighted grins. They’d entered the cage and pulled the knives from his wings. He’d struggled, but twin knives slashed at his arms and chest and he was rather easily moved. The collar around his neck was still attached to the wall, and it almost immediately began choking him as the demons tied his arms, to the sides of the cage. The collar had small, cruel teeth that bit into Sherlock’s neck with any sudden movement and he gagged. There was a snap, and then, more slack in the chain. He was surprised, but not for long.

The whip dug into his back and wings, again and again. And then he understood. Moriarty wanted to hear him scream. You couldn’t scream if you couldn’t breath. The whip licked at his neck, his wings, back and arse and thighs. Finally, it stopped. His back felt a pulpy mess, he could barely even feel it anymore. The skin felt….gone really. “That should do you for now,” Moriarty had said calmly. Then, there was another snap, and…the stinging. The stinging began. The demons started laughing, taking turns with water pistols full of lemon juice and alcohol, squirting his back. He was relieved that they couldn’t touch salt. At least it limited just what they could pour into his wounds after they were inflicted. Then he screamed again as someone chucked a bucket of…was it peroxide? on his back. He wasn’t sure what it was, only that it hurt. He had collapsed, almost sobbing. He tried to tell himself he’d had worse, but his mind was nearly blank from pain, and he couldn’t remember worse than this. 

The day after that, the exercise was repeated. Except this time a four tailed whip was used, with bits of bone at the end. He was not allowed to sleep. He wasn’t allowed to even collapse that day. As soon as the whip and peroxide part was over, Moriarty left. But the demons didn’t. They burned the ground under his feet, catching them on fire if he didn’t, jump. Then they’d freeze it as he came down, sending him sprawling. 

The following day, once more, he was whipped, and the demons were then allowed to have their fun. One shoved him over and another turned the floor where he landed into a bed of pins. The others liked this idea so much that they started making pins, and then nails start popping up all over the floor, making him jump to avoid them. They’d shoot up if he stayed in the same place for more than a second. He tried to climb the bars if the cage, but these two developed spikes, making him fall. Over and over, all night it lasted. Where were they getting their power? He couldn’t think, but he _knew_ this was odd. Demons shouldn’t be able to do this, not normal ones. He never thought he’d be grateful for the return of James….of Moriarty.

“Can’t have them killing you too quickly, can we brother?” he’d sing-songed. Sherlock lay on the floor, curled up in the fetal position. He gasped for breath, shook in pain and exhaustion. Blood still flowed rather freely from his back, his feet, his hands. His vision was hazy and swimming, his hearing was off, everything seemed to fade in and out, echoing. Moriarty ‘tsk’d.’ “This won’t do.” He clicked his fingers. And Sherlock’s wounds healed themselves over. They scarred, didn’t vanish as though they’d never been there, but they healed, from the bottom up. “There now. Now you won’t die on me. Good. Because I still have a lot of fun planned for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've taken the basic character of angels from how they act in the TV show Supernatural. I've also taken some of the demon behavior from that show, though I've given them more power in this instance. 
> 
> *Dina--angel of Learning, also of Knowledge and Communication. I figured, this would be a good one to represent Anthea from the show.
> 
> **Isda--angel of Nourishment, physical and emotional wellbeing. There are better angels of healing, but I figured, on short notice, she might be the closest one Mycroft could get ahold of. 
> 
> I have decided that Sherlock and Mycroft are their angelic names as well, for making things easier, but if I had to pick 'angelic' names for them, I'd go with Gazardiel (angel of new beginnings and All Knowing) for Mycroft, and Hamaliel (angel of Logic and Orderly Thinking) for Sherlock. 
> 
> There might be better choices, but based on the very little bit of research I did, I like those names.


	4. Tortures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More on what Sherlock went through while being tortured.  
> Bit more explicit, but nothing too awful I don't think. 
> 
> Also has Sherlock's side of the Dreams from earlier.
> 
> Starting to see the signs of psychological torture and there effects on Sherlock. 
> 
> Fairly long chapter.

Sherlock had lost track of how much time had passed. There was snow on the ground, he knew. Because it had swirled into the warehouse the night before, and piled up a bit on the floor under the windows. He’d actually managed to fall asleep, covered with his wings to keep out the chill. He’d been woken with a bucket of freezing water. A demon shoved her face into his. “Wake up sunshine!” she’d crowed. “It’s a glorious cold day. Up! Up! Up!” Each ‘up’ was accompanied by a jab with an old fire poker to the ribs. Sherlock tried to stand, but she’d hit him, hard in the ribs when he didn’t stand up fast enough. “Hurry up!” she’d trilled. 

“Come Angela, give him some time.” Sherlock had snorted. A demon named Angela. Ironic. She’d given him another poke, this one in the stomach and danced away. “You enjoy your sleep?” He’d only had about two hours of it. They’d kept screaming, and invisible hands kept yanking on the chains around his wrists and neck. He didn’t answer, merely glared at Moriarty. 

“Oh, recalcitrant today are we?” Sherlock’s eyes hardened slightly. The effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was soaking wet and shivering. Moriarty ‘tsk’d’ again. “Angela, Dawson. Have some fun will you? I want him a bit warmed up.” The two demons grabbed at the wrist chains. His wings swung out and hit them both, leaving them swearing. Moriarty laughed. “Got a bit of fight in you today, that’s nice. Keeps things interesting. Come on. He’s chained up. Use your pathetic little brains.” If they were insulted, neither demon showed it. They went for the chains again, got another clock round their heads with his wings for their efforts. 

The wings might have been physical now, but what little grace he had still hummed in them, and it was more than just bone and feathers that hit the demons. There was still enough grace in him to hurt them. Angela tried to use her fire poker, but he batted it away. It hurt, but at least she didn’t have it anymore. He settled into a slightly more secure fighting stance. He was exhausted, and he didn’t know how long he could keep this up, but at least he could try. He was still an angel. And he would fight until his last breath. 

Moriarty thought his new stance hilarious, and just laughed for a few minutes as the two demons tried to get close to him. “See what two hours of sleep can do?” he crowed. “Just have to make you annoyed that’s all.” Still, after a few minutes, he grew bored of seeing Sherlock bat his minions away. Two more demons appeared, with…Sherlock paused. Netting? All four launched themselves at him at once and, try as he might, he couldn’t fight them off. He struggled and hit, but by the end of it all, his wings were lashed tightly to his back with a strange, metallic netting, tightly linked. It sealed across his chest, ensuring the wings couldn’t break free. 

The demons gripped the chains on the shackles, and threaded the chains through the hoops on the wall above him, hoisting his arms above his head. He knelt on the floor, gasping. The metal brace across his chest burned. His wings cramped and all but screamed to be released. Moriarty knelt in front of him. “Sorry Sherlock. Don’t really like you fighting all that much. Higher please.” They pulled on the chains, jerking him up by the arms so he was forced into an awkward crouch. “There is good,” said Moriarty. “We’ll be back shortly.” It was two days. During that time he didn’t see anyone, though occasionally the chains would jerk his arms up, or something would kick his legs out from under him, dislocating both shoulders. 

He eventually passed out from sheer exhaustion. And, he finally managed to dream. John was there. Dreamwalking. In the minutes he’d managed to catch of sleep here and there the past….however long it had been, he’d tried to do this, and it had never worked. It took him a moment, but he realized it wasn’t a dream. He’d managed it. He was in the flat, wearing his coat, firmly buttoned to his neck. “Oh,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting this.” He looked at John, who looked a little stunned to see him. Definitely Dreamwalking then. Not just a dream. Thank….well, whomever was listening. Father, maybe. “I suppose we must be asleep at the same time. I’ve been trying to do this for ages you know.” Since he realized he could dream.  
“What?” John had asked. Sherlock had to fight to keep himself from sighing in exasperation. It wasn’t John’s fault.  
““Nothing, it’s not important. Look, he’ll realize that I’m here, you have to get…” and then he’d felt Moriarty’s presence. He felt it wrapping around his body, suffocating him. He saw John’s eyes, wide and terrified, and knew John must see it too, though he had no idea what John was seeing. And then he was jerked backward, tumbling into darkness, opening his eyes to the furious face of Moriarty. 

“Reaching out to your pet will do nothing,” he’d snarled.  
“I didn’t tell him _anything”_ Sherlock had snapped. “And I wasn’t expecting to…to Dreamwalk anyway.” Still, Moriarty had not been happy. He’d let a wraith have her way with Sherlock, and he spent a week seeing things that weren’t there, screaming at nothing. After, Moriarty had shown him the tapes. Sherlock never quite remembered what he had seen during that week. He’d screamed John’s name a lot. He’d strangled a lot of air. Hit the walls of the cage until his fists were bloody. Nearly scratched his skin off one day, muttering about bugs. Really, he was glad he didn’t remember.

Weeks turned into months. He still dreamed sometimes, usually John was in them, though it wasn’t the real John from the time he’d managed to Dreamwalk.

One day, it was summer, it must be summer considering the fact that the warehouse had turned into a furnace, though he still woke freezing on the nights he managed to sleep at all. The metal bars on the cage burned to touch, and the usually cool floor was warm. They clapped new chains on him, ones to burn the skin, not freeze it. His wings were still bound a lot of the time, still twinged and burned painfully. The demons set fire to them once. Held a burning stick to each wing, letting it burn under the netting until the lack of oxygen put out the fire. He’d screamed. 

The smell of burning feathers mixed with melting metal. He’d stopped screaming in order to gag on the oily smoke. That was the first time they’d brought in a hell hound. It had batted him across the cage, and he was pretty sure his wings both cracked. He’d hit his head fairly hard too, and felt a little dizzy. It had jumped on him then, and his ribs definitely cracked. He’d seen the maw of the beast getting closer to his face, and then something hit the hound, hard, then swung around and hit him in the head. He passed out. And he was back in the flat. John was in his usual chair. He was still in his coat and he was sitting gingerly in his chair. He hurt. Father in….wherever He was, really, he hurt. 

“Really? The flat again? This is the first place he’ll look.” John’s head had snapped up, “What’s happened? Are you alright?” John had asked frantically. Sherlock rolled his eyes, though he answered. “It’s…nothing. Few broken bones, I think. Cracked ribs?. Burned…appendages. I’ll be alright. Well. Presuming I don’t die of exposure. The water….” 

He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to say so much. And then the presence is there, suffocating, pulling him back. 

This time, the wraith is given two weeks. He remembers this time. He remembers John coming at him with a gun, remembers breaking John’s neck with his bare hands. He remembers shooting Mrs Hudson through the heart for reasons he did not recall. 

Remembers Molly’s knife cutting down his chest, and he…hands shooting up, choking, pressing against her throat, the soft noise of thumbs crushing trachea. Remembers Lestrade coming after him with Donvan and Anderson and…others. Remembers grabbing a stick…a sword? They had clubs…he remembered ducking and weaving and stabbing…and the wraith, coming back. He tried to kill her. It didn’t work. 

At night, he still heard the screams. Moriarty’s face swam into view. “I’ve got Melissa,” Melissa? Oh, the wraith, he’d forgotten…. “having some fun with a few friends,” he whispered. John’s voice rang out.  
“Sherlock! Sherlock!” A woman screamed. Sherlock screamed too. “No! No you promised. Only me, you _promised._ ” Moriarty had sighed.  
“I lied. I do that you know.” Sherlock’s knees had buckled where he had been straining at the collar. Moriarty had laughed, hit him, hard, with something metal, and left. 

When he’d come to again, the wraith’s poison had all but left his system. The screaming continued, but now he could tell it was on a loop. Recordings. Annoying, but the more he listened, the more he could tell that John hadn’t been in pain when he was yelling his name. It was unlikely he was being tortured. And the sounds were far too mechanical in the female’s scream as well. No, his friends were not being tortured, not being hurt. That relief even managed to carry him through the next several days, though the memories of killing his friends…and the others, remained very fresh in his mind. 

And then he dreamed of John again, the first time he’d managed to sleep more than a few minutes without nightmares or demons waking him. They were on a beach this time. And Sherlock was so relieved to see John he almost hugged him. Instead, he merely asked John to talk. To tell him how everyone was doing. Each word reassured his beleaguered mind that he had definitely not killed his friends. That they were all well, and unmolested by Moriarty’s demons. Moriarty was coming, Sherlock could feel it. “Remember the metal…” he tried suddenly, doing his best to give John a clue as to his whereabouts. Water, from the previous conversation. Metalworks. Hopefully, John would piece it together. It wasn’t much to go on though. Especially since John likely thought these were just very vivid dreams. But still, he hoped John would figure it out. It was unlikely, since he hadn’t gotten the rest of the word out before he was dragged to the sea and down.

He couldn’t tell if Moriarty was pleased or not. He did like torturing Sherlock, that much was obvious. But if John might figure out where he was….Moriarty would rather enjoy killing John in front of Sherlock. But he was rather hoping to wait a bit before they got to that part. Sherlock wasn’t sure if Moriarty was telling him all this…or if he just knew it. 

This troubled him a bit, but not enough to dwell on it. Because suddenly the hell hounds were there, tearing the netting off his wings, the small rings pulling bits of feather and flesh with them. He screamed. The smell was terrible. Moriarty had a habit of hosing him down every night. Either with freezing or with scalding water, depending on his mood. And it always hurt, pressing him against the bars of the cage, nearly drowning him. But it also ensured he and the cage were fairly clean for the next round of tortures. The water washed away any blood or waste. 

But the wings had been injured and broken and festering for weeks, unable to move, blood and pus congealing in the feathers, and the metal had been melted to them in places. So as the hell hounds tore away the netting, it caused more pain than Sherlock could have imagined. The wings didn’t burst free, they were peeled free, leaving a good chunk of them behind in the dirty and stinking nets. Moriarty crouched in front of him. “Don’t ever let me catch you telling him _anything._ Not ever again. Or I will kill him. And I will make you watch.” The hell hounds were gone. Sherlock never saw them leave. “Goodbye Sherlock, for now. Enjoy some lye, while I’m gone.” Two demons pulled the chains at his arms tight and low, forcing his forehead to the ground. Liquid splashed over him, burning. He screamed, even as he felt the skin on his back turning an angry red, cracking, and the pain starting again as the liquid filled the new cracks.

The wraith didn’t stop coming, not even when the Dreamwalks stopped. For months, he’d dreamed of John, but it was never real. And then she’d come, grinning, and she’d poison his mind, and he’d see John. See him clear as if he were really there. It was almost always John. And every time Sherlock spoke to him, Moriarty would bite at him, scratch and beat and scream until Sherlock could barely move. 

He brought Hellhounds. The huge dogs would tear at Sherlock, ripping at his skin with teeth the size of his hand. They’d claw at his wings, ripping through them, at his back, and legs, clear to the bone. They’d step on him, and he’d hear, rather than feel bones break. One absolutely crushed his wings, turning the bones to practically gravel.

So Sherlock stopped talking to the dream John. And the beatings associated with that stopped too. Talking to John would get him beaten within an inch of his life. He learned to avoid that. And John was never real anyway. This one seemed more real than the others. John kept begging him to talk. He wouldn’t. Not again. Not to the dream John. Sherlock merely stared at him. It took him a long time, to realize that this ... this time it was real. Not a wraith dream. Still. He didn’t speak. John asked him questions, he begged him to say if he was alright. Sherlock just stared at him for a while, then buried his head in his arms. No monster dragged him back that day. He opened his eyes to the fire hose crushing him with boiling hot water. 

He still had wraith given hallucinations about killing John, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade. Of people coming to rescue him, NSY with all their forces, John, gun drawn. He didn’t have any more about Molly, not after that first time, though he never really wondered why. He never thought about it. There wasn’t time. Usually he could tell when something was a hallucination or not. And often, he could dispel these with the triumphant informing of these imagined friends that they were false. It was the only thing, he learned that was safe to say to John. False. False. Though he usually didn’t say anything if it were a dream of John. Just to be safe. To know it, in his mind was enough. To know that his mind was still his own….he didn’t need to say it out loud.

After these dreams, Moriarty would stand, gloating at him. “Well, Sherlock?” he crowed. “Enjoying your sleep? See anything interesting?” And Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him, the beginnings of a sneer.  
“Like I’d tell you,” he said, voice hard, sometimes harsh from screams. Moriarty would lift him by the collar.  
“You’ll want to be careful about what you say, Sherlock dear,” he whispered, silkily. Sherlock spat on him.  
“You’ll want to be careful how close you get to me,” he snarled, striking out, hard. It wasn’t an effective blow, not really. It hit his Fallen brother in the human vessels solar plexus, had James been human, it would have leveled him. As it was, he did stumble back, and straightened his suit furiously. “You will pay for that one Sherlock,” he hissed. Sherlock was quite sure that he would. But he was learning. James, it seemed, when gloating, had a tendency to come too close. Sherlock had felt an angel blade in his coat. He would keep that in mind.

Sherlock learned things about demons too. He learned that they liked iron. And they liked especially, to send it crashing across his face. Moriarty though, seemed to like his face. More so than the rest of his body, which was only healed when it was broken nearly beyond repair, and even then, thick scars roped around it, covering back, stomach, legs. His face though, Moriarty healed with almost no scarring every time.

Sometimes the pokers the demons came in with were hot, glowing from the heat of a fire. It didn’t take long for his feet to be burned, for them to work their way up his legs, to his buttocks and cock, to stomach—they had fun carving angel repelling wounds there, until Moriarty reminded them that he could still be affected by them, and they stopped, moving on to poke and burn Sherlock’s under arms and neck. 

He fought back when he could. Striking out with whatever he could get his hands on, or, more often, just his hands. Moriarty would laugh when he managed to strike a demon. Or the wraith even. Sherlock hated Moriarty’s laughter, more than anything. 

Moriarty had apparently gotten sick of healing his face after a certain point, and they mostly left it alone. He hadn’t quiet figured out why Moriarty wanted his face kept…relatively clean of bruises or cuts and scarring.

John knew. It was written in one of the journals. 

_It’s such fun to see every nuance of pain flicker across that pretty face. I’m glad he chose a pretty one. It’s much more entertaining. Must tell demons to stop mucking it up. The more bruising or scarring on said face, the less glorious pained faces he makes. They really are idiots. Faces are simply more mobile when they aren’t tight with scarring or cuts. Hate demons. Bloody awful creatures. If they make a fuss, they can still hit his head starting from the hair line. Will cause pain when if he so much as lifts an eyebrow. Still does that, saucy boy. Must fix that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. I think that a lot of story was lost in this chapter, and it became really descriptive. Sorry about that. It is pretty long.
> 
> So...sorry. Kudos if you actually read it all.
> 
> I'd love some comments and suggestions.


	5. Journals and Drifting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John reads some more of Moriarty's journals.
> 
> Mycroft keeps a bedside vigil.
> 
> Sherlock drifts.
> 
> John and Sherlock reunite.

John started to feel sick as he read the journals. Moriarty mentioned an ‘event’ that seemed to have broken Sherlock, but didn’t go into detail. John wondered why. He swallowed. He’d have to keep reading.

 _He dreamwalked again. At this point, I know it to be accidental. It was glorious though. I found him immediately. In the flat with John. The last time, he was beautifully good, didn’t say a word. This time, he remained curled on the ground. Until he saw John. He pointed and then laughed. He laughed and laughed, though they turned to hysterical screams. For the time being, I grew tired of his laughter, amusing though it was to begin with, and decided to give dear John a bit of a fright. A hell hound dragged him back this time, used him a bit like a chew toy, unfortunately. I had to heal him. At least, of the internal bleeding and ruptured stomach and lung. No need to heal his bones. They are more fun broken anyway.  
Later, he kept murmuring, ‘can’t trick me, not again, false John. Don’t trick me, can’t, can’t, false John false.’ And other things of that nature. Event seems to have traumatised him more than originally intended._

The next entry was dated a month and a half later. There had been a few aborted entries, though none detailed any vicious tortures, not like the previous entries. A few lines here and there:

_tried a new whip.. Angel blades in the tails, like razors.  
Gave him a new pair of trousers. Beat him with the club when he didn’t touch them, broke 2 ribs. Pepper spray in the eyes and spiked cleats to the foot when he did. Made him stand on broken foot—pinned wings._

_Burned plumage. Smell unpleasant. Foot still broken._

_Sherlock is no fun anymore. He doesn’t fight back. Reacts with fear when anyone enters the room. Barely speaks—tends to be disjointed when he does. Huddles in the corner much of the time. Tried a gun yesterday, shot him in the hip and wing. Animal screams, barely recognizable as human or angel. Dull. Eyes always full of pain and fear. No more hatred, no more fire. Fixed his foot. And the gunshot wounds. Wasn’t even fun to watch the demons pour salt into them. They get jumpy. But he just kept saying ‘no no no stop,’ over and over again, sometimes screaming, sometimes crying. He isn’t even trying anymore._

It was the last entry. A month before they’d found him. A month. 

John had been reading journals for nearly two months. He felt sick. He suddenly felt violently ill, and in fact, barely made it to the bathroom at all. 

 

Sherlock had been at Mycroft’s home. Recovering. John only knew what Mycroft had told him about Sherlock’s healing. No one was allowed to visit Sherlock. Not after what had happened in the warehouse. John was going nearly out of his mind. Mycroft met with him and Lestrade fairly regularly. John and Lestrade would compare notes about the journals. Mycroft would listen impassively. He was watching the tapes. He was getting through them at incredible pace. 

Sherlock, he’d tell them, had been getting often less than an hour of sleep a night. After more than two years of nearly 24 hour a day torture, he told them to be patient. It would take a while for him to heal, even a little. And so it had been two months, and John hadn’t seen him. No one had.

Mycroft said he’d made progress. In the beginning, he’d pressed himself into the corner and wrapped himself with his wings, shaking. He had gotten sick every time he’d eaten, and eventually, refused to eat at all. This, said Mycroft, was a problem. His grace was no longer muted but it was incredibly weak still. And that meant that Sherlock was still essentially human. Which meant he needed to eat. And drink. It had taken him a long time to ensure Sherlock managed to keep down an entire glass of water.

He’d put him unconscious for two weeks, and actually hooked him up to IV’s liberated from a local hospital. “To make sure he has gets some nutrients in him,” Mycroft had said. 

It had taken most of the first month for Sherlock to believe that Mycroft wouldn’t hurt him for wearing the provided pyjama bottoms. John found the reason for this in one of the journals. In the cold months, mostly, Moriarty would supply Sherlock with clothes, tell him to put them on, beat him if he refused. Then, when he did put them on, the next time Moriarty came into the room, he’d fly into a rage, beating, cutting, burning Sherlock, berating him. “I never said you could wear that. What, you think you’re better than this? You’re _nothing._ ” According to the journals, Moriarty found this sort of no win scenario absolutely hysterical. And it left Sherlock helpless.  
It was impossible to give him a shirt. Even without the left over memories of torture, his wings were still in horrible shape. And he couldn’t…hide them, couldn’t return them to the proper plane. Mycroft couldn’t do it himself, and Sherlock lacked to presence of mind. So blankets, at first, and even after, were provided in lieu of clothing. They were often abandoned, or vanished out of existence by a frightened or distraught Sherlock. 

The lack of control he seemed to have over his grace concerned Mycroft. He ended up warding his house completely, so that Sherlock couldn’t fly away, simply by accident. It meant that he couldn’t leave either, at least not easily, but it was a small price to pay, he thought.

He didn’t tell John and Lestrade everything. Or even most of it. He wasn’t really watching the tapes. Dina did that, and passed information onto Mycroft, or let him know if there was a particular tape that he _should_ watch. Isda watched a few, but it wasn’t as necessary for her particular brand of healing. Remliel and Sariel** both had to watch all the tapes as well. To determine how best to heal Sherlock’s body and spirit, respectively. Mycroft watched Sherlock. The dreams seemed to be the worst. Sherlock just kept screaming. Sometimes Mycroft could calm him, sometimes he couldn’t, and it took the combined power of himself, Isda, and Sariel to calm him.

Mycroft worried about Sherlock’s mind. It had always been excellent, clear, and focused. It had made him an excellent strategist when part of the Host. His plans, though often unconventional, had the highest success rate. That is to say, the fewest deaths in a given situation. He was extraordinarily good at separating himself from the problem, looking at it from different angles, in seeing all possible paths something could take.

And so Mycroft worried. If Sherlock had separated himself as he used to, and something…had broken, something rendered him unable to get back to seeing things from one direction, the right one, then he was drifting. And he was seeing far, far too much, all the time. And if some of those things weren’t real….Mycroft had no way of knowing. And no way of helping.

 

_Sherlock was drifting. He had been drifting for a long time. He had forgotten much. He had lost something. The sheets were cool against his bare flesh, and that was odd. Why was that odd? His body jerked involuntarily as it remembered the sting of a whip. Ah. Right. He remembered James then, James, his Fallen brother that had kidnapped him. Tortured him. Because…why? He didn’t remember._

_His body jerked again. When had he lost control? He didn’t remember that either. He felt that something in him was broken. And when he felt for what it was, the answer hurried away again. He couldn’t grasp it. He thought maybe, whatever it was he had lost was important. It was bad he didn’t have it anymore. He shifted. The sheets were cool against his skin, rasping softly. That was odd. Why?_

_He saw James…but he called himself something different, what….ah. Moriarty. He saw his face, and knew him and the face started to laugh. Sherlock screamed. He fought to move, to get up, to get away, away from the laughing, from the mad, furious, hate filled eyes._

_Something, restraints on his arms, a weight on his chest. He thrashed, panicking. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the manic, cruel laughter, a roaring in his ears. He bucked his hips, whipped his neck, arched his back. He screamed. Then, his name, punching through the horrible sound of laughter and the voice was frightened, but controlled and that was odd, because Moriarty was not frightened, and he wasn’t controlled, not ever, not really._

_He heard his name again, and slowly his vision cleared. **Mycroft** , he thought. Mycroft’s face was above his own, saying his name, over and over, holding him down, telling him that he was going to hurt himself, that he had to calm down, that he was safe, that James was dead._

_Sherlock’s breath came hard and fast, gasping as he tried to suck in air. He shook, a sheen of sweat covering his body. He stared at Mycroft, barely comprehending his presence. He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong with him, why he couldn’t think…but no sound came out. He couldn’t find the words. Or…he knew what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t figure out how to get the message from his brain to his lips and out._

_He closed his mouth again, feeling a blankness starting to settle over him. He managed a choked sob, but no words. Everything hurt. Why did everything hurt? He realized that Mycroft was still there, still speaking. How long had that been going one? He tried to focus on Mycroft, on his words. After a vain moment or two, he gave up, slipping away into his mind again. Why couldn’t he remember? Why couldn’t he **think?**_

_He felt the weight leave his chest. He shifted again. The sheets were cool against his skin. He tried to remember why that was odd._

 

 

John was allowed to see him four months after Sherlock was found. He was sitting on the bed, cross legged, not really looking at anything. His wings dipped up and down, though they mostly remained pulled tight around him. “Sherlock,” said Mycroft quietly. “John is here.” Sherlock’s spine stiffened. He looked up, saw John standing hesitantly next to Mycroft. Sherlock’s eyes widened, his throat tightened. He propelled himself off the bed toward the wall, shaking slightly. “Sherlock it…it really is me.” Sherlock made a scoffing noise.

“False,” he murmured. “Tricks. _Stop_ ,” he begged, voice raspy.  
“Sherlock, _Sherlock_ ,” Mycroft’s voice was commanding. Sherlock looked over at him. “It. Is. John,” said Mycroft, slowly, enunciating each word. “It is not a trick. Not an illusion. And he isn’t going to hurt you.”  
“Hurts,” whispered Sherlock. His eyes darted from Mycroft to John again. Mycroft…definitely real. Definitely Mycroft. And Mycroft wouldn’t be fooled. And Mycroft wouldn't lie, would he? _He might_ something inside Sherlock whispered. But he hadn't, not recently. He'd been _here_ and trying to make him better. Mycroft said it was John--was it? It could be. Looked like John. Smelled like him. False John hadn’t smelled like him. Right? Not really. He’d been close but…not real.

Sherlock stared at John’s face, trying to see. Tricks? He didn’t know, he couldn’t tell. He shuddered, trying to think. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t trust what he could see, or hear. Mycroft. He glanced to Mycroft and back to John. Mycroft said John was real. John was…John was his friend. He’d do anything for John—and hadn’t he? Two years…Mycroft said it was more than two years. Two and half years, no grace, that’s why he was….black thoughts roiled in his mind and he pushed them away. No. Thinking would only make things worse. 

He stepped slowly away from the wall. His heart hammered in his chest. He took a shaky breath. Vessel, so locked into his vessel, why was that? He…no. No thinking. He took another step. He glanced at Mycroft and at John again. Back to Mycroft. It took him a long time to get across the room. He carefully reached out with a trembling arm and brushed long fingers across John’s face. False John had always reacted if Sherlock touched him. Lashing out with whips and words as sharp as swords. Sometimes pressing his face into Sherlock’s hand, sometimes pressing cold lips against it, reaching out to pull Sherlock close.

This John didn’t move. Just closed his eyes. Sherlock glanced at Mycroft again, who nodded. He raised his other hand, brought it to John’s face as well. He began mapping it, thumbs brushing against cheekbones, his nose and above his eyebrows. He traced fingers down John’s lips, his chin. John let him map his features, let him learn the feel of them. It was different. Different than False John. This was…he huffed out a breath. This was real. He was….he glanced at Mycroft again, grounding himself. It was real. This John was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Remliel and Sariel are the angels of Awakening, and Guidance and Healing respectively. There is another, called Saruek, that I might use later. I figure Mycroft could have gotten some of the lesser angels to help him out.  
> Raphael is the angel of Healing, but...he's also an archangel, at least according to a lot of sources, not only Supernatural, so I figured he'd be busy. Either doing arch angel stuff or being a dick, depending on whatever you want.
> 
> This chapter (I know) jumps rather suddenly from a not really healed Sherlock to a much better Sherlock. A lot of the chapters are going to do that. Go between recovery and torture and being sick in Mycroft's house etc. There will be more of the four months we didn't see in this chapter, intermixed with scenes from after he meets John again.  
> Who needs chronology anyway?
> 
> Not brit-picked or anything, so...sorry if my wording or phrasing in that regard is all over the place.


	6. History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set about two weeks after Sherlock was found. 
> 
> Contains a brief depiction of torture, and discussion.
> 
> Also contains some Angel History, by Mycroft! Some is personal head canon, and some is borrowed from CW's Supernatural, and then embellished a bit.
> 
> I don't own the main characters. Isda and Sariel are mine, though...someone else named them. Whoever decides what angels are called and what they are angels of. Characterization is mine though.

The chains around Sherlock’s wrists were tight. They lifted his arms straight into the air, suspended by a hook on the ceiling. His feet brushed the ground, barely. No way to take the pressure off his arms. He’d been hanging there for nearly three hours. His hands were turning blue. Earlier, he’d tried everything he could think of to get down. Nothing had worked. And the only thing that _might_ have, getting his hands around the chain, and starting to climb up, had ended with the chain being electrified, and he’d fallen. He’d been a little surprised that his arms hadn’t broken, with the force of his fall. 

The demons came a little later, when he just…hung there arms numb and pained. He still managed to kick at them, until two started holding his legs down, making struggle impossible.

One of them came toward him grinning. He held a sharpened pipe. Sherlock tried to move, he really did, but the chains on his arms and the demons holding his legs made it impossible. The demon grinned. “Let’s play, angel,” he sneered. Sherlock breathed through his nose, hard and fast. The demon laughed. And Sherlock did scream as the metal pipe plunged through his stomach, impaling him, rather cleanly. 

He couldn’t breathe for almost a full minute. “Aw, did that _hurt_ angel?” taunted the demon, picking up another long metal pipe. This one went through his shoulder. The demons holding his legs took the opportunity to start pulling on the pipes, letting go of his legs in the process. He managed to kick one as it pulled down on the pipe in his shoulder. It squealed furiously, and the next pipe went into his leg. 

It was too much all at once. Sherlock blacked out. He came to not long after, with Moriarty’s face just inches from his own, dropping the pipe that had been in his leg on the ground. “No escaping that way Sherlock,” he chirped, almost pleasantly. “That’s cheating.” Sherlock growled at him.

“Some would argue that blackmailing another into allowing himself to be kidnapped and tortured is cheating too,” he snarled. Moriarty shoved the pipe he’d removed through Sherlock’s abdomen. 

“Be careful what you say Sherlock.” He leaned on the pipe. “I don’t think John would survive this do you?” Sherlock grunted in pain. “What do you say we test it out?” Sherlock’s eyes widened.

“No,” he managed to choke out. “No, don’t you dare.” Moriarty smiled. 

“Don’t tell me what to do brother dear,” he said. “You know how cross it makes me.” Sherlock struggled against the chains, choking in pain. 

“Please,” he finally ground out.

“Well, I do like it when you beg,” said Moriarty. He yanked the pipe out from where it protruded from Sherlock’s back. “Beg!” he yelled, swinging the pipe, cracking it against Sherlock’s ribs. “Beg! Beg! Beg!” Each ‘beg’ was accompanied by a strong whack of the metal pipe against Sherlock’s stomach or ribs. 

“Please,” said Sherlock, “please, please,” He alternated muttering and screaming. “Don’t hurt him, please,” Until finally the metal stopped connecting with skin and the chain lifted him up higher, almost to the roof, and then was severed, sending him plummeting to the ground. His leg made a horrible cracking sound. Then he screamed again, because someone was on his leg, pulling and he screamed yet again as the bone was forced through skin and _stomped_ on. 

“Alright then,” said Moriarty’s voice. “I won’t hurt him. Yet.” And blackness took him again.

 

Dina paused the tape and rubbed her hands over her eyes. Four months in. They’d found the tapes weeks ago, and she was only four months in, even watching some things on fast forward. 

“Anything to pass on?” Isda’s voice. “Sariel is trying to figure out if he’s missed anything.” 

“Tell him to look for muscle or organ damage that may have been caused by James impaling him.” She ran a hand through her hair. “And maybe bone damage? I don’t know. He might just need a new vessel entirely.” Isda looked uncomfortable.

“We can’t do that,” she said. “He’s still…locked in there. We think it might be…permanent. Or at least….mostly. We tried expelling him from the vessel, but we think it just hurt him.” 

Dina frowned. “You think?”

“His body went all rigid, but he didn’t scream or move or cry or anything. We thought we’d killed him for a moment, but Mycroft got him to talk again. Sort of.” Gotten him to start murmuring about imaginary conversations, about someone being false, being not there, that he couldn’t be tricked. It had been awful. That had been eleven days ago. 

Sariel had been trying to heal Sherlock’s body as best he could. Body would come first, and then they could start working on healing his mind. Dina was concerned it was taking so long to heal his body. But his grace was hurt too, and that was making it difficult to help the vessels body. Sariel had to heal both Sherlock himself, the grace, and the body it was contained in. It would take some doing. 

Isda started to leave, telling Dina to send word if there was something else in particular they ought to take a look at. Dina suggested the wings. They were already doing that. “Can’t someone call Raphael?” she asked loudly. Isda paused, and turned around again. “He’s still angry at Mycroft,” she said softly. “And he’s probably busy anyway. He’s an archangel Dina. He isn’t going to help Sherlock. Not after Sherlock _left._ ” She turned and strode away, back to the sick room where Sherlock lay healing. Dina closed her eyes and thought rather uncharitable thoughts toward archangels in general and Raphael in particular. Then she pressed play, and settled in to watch some more tapes of her brother being tortured.

 

Greg Lestrade and Sally Donovan met at Baker Street to discuss the journals two weeks after finding Sherlock. They’d decided against pubs or anywhere public, based on the nature of the journals in question. John let them in. There was an air of…dread about the flat. “I don’t really want to discuss what I read,” said John, suddenly. “It was bad enough reading it once, and I’m not even finished. I don’t need to read all of the journals. And…I don’t need to know what yours said.” Greg and Sally nodded. Sally felt much the same way anyway, she was just glad that John had said it first.

“What are we doing here then?” asked Lestrade. John sat heavily on the chair, on Sherlock’s chair. 

“We are going to discuss…how we can help him,” he said. “Physically…well, he seemed okay, as was possible. There were mentions of bone breaks and…well. Of impaling,” he shivered, “but there were no signs of that when we…when we found him. I haven’t….gotten to the mental bits yet.” He dreaded getting to the parts where Moriarty started to play with Sherlock’s mind.

“I have,” said Lestrade. “I’ve got journals from near the middle, I think, and…” he shuddered. “He’s got this creature…called a wraith, providing Sherlock with…false experiences, and hallucinations. Of us. Well, not so much of you Sally, but of me. And John, and Mrs Hudson. Strangers too…anyway, he got lots of hallucinations about being freed. About us…and even others at NSY coming to rescue him. I mean…it makes his reaction to us make a lot more sense, if he thought we were more….wraith sent hallucinations.”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about this,” protested Sally.

“We should talk about it,” said Mycroft. All three of them jumped. 

“Don’t _do_ that,” said Greg, furiously. He had leapt to his feet. John had automatically reached behind his back for the gun that wasn’t there anyway, and that he wasn't sure Greg even knew he had, considering just how illegal it was that he had it.

“I think we need to discuss something else, Mycroft,” said John, evenly. “Why did Moriarty…or James, or whatever the fuck his name was, choose Sherlock to do this to? Mycroft sighed. 

“It hardly matters, does it?” 

John scowled. “Yes. It does.” 

Mycroft sighed again. “There was a War,” he said finally. “A long time ago. Heaven’s forces were split. One-third agreed with Lucifer, that humans should be subjugated, that it was wrong that we were meant to bow to your kind, that you should bow to us. He said…that God was asking us to….love humans more than Him, that this was wrong, that Lucifer, for one, wouldn’t do it. He…was clever and persuasive. Really, he wasn’t talking about loving our Father too much, he was talking about doing a better job ruling than Him, that he had a better plan.

James…agreed with him wholeheartedly. Sherlock and I…rather did as well. Until Sherlock figured out what it was Lucifer really meant. James and Sherlock had been…close. Very close and…they’d been making plans, for…well, for when we won. Everyone knew it would come to war. And Sherlock and James were excited for this new world. A world where, as we thought, angels and heaven and God would get proper respect. Well. Sherlock figured out that Lucifer planned on _replacing_ our Father on Heaven’s throne and…that didn’t sit well with him. 

It was the eve of war. Lucifer was about to declare, really. Sherlock tried to convince Jim and myself that Lucifer was wrong, that fighting against the rest of the Host was against God’s will, that to do it would be to Fall. I listened. James…liked the idea of power. He liked the idea of Lucifer deposing our Father, because if _that_ could be done, then James could eventually depose Lucifer. 

I suppose…he thought that if Sherlock had followed through on their plans, if he had stayed fighting with James…he wouldn’t have Fallen. Or at least, they’d have Fallen together. As it was, James lost. He Fell. Sherlock and I….did not. The other archangels…found out that it had been Sherlock that convinced me to fight for them, that I hadn’t really done it for Heaven, I had more…done it for him. They were…displeased with me. Sherlock….nothing really happened to him. He figured it out, he tried to get others go come back to fight for the Host….his near treachery could be overlooked.

James it seemed…never forgave Sherlock for betraying him. For telling the Host what he knew, and what he guessed, of Lucifer’s plans. He felt that Sherlock had taken everything away from him, all his dreams of power, and of domination. So…he waited. Waited for Sherlock to have something that Jim could threaten and then…take.” He looked at John.

“He didn’t take me,” protested John.

“He would have. Eventually. He would have taken you, likely brutally killed you in front of Sherlock, and likely Mrs Hudson as well as you, Detective Inspector, and then used that wraith to…convince Sherlock that he had done it. He was…at one point, hanging on to sanity by noticing that the things in his visions were not there consistently. If he imagined to have killed you, and then your bodies didn’t go away….then he would have believed it. James….wanted him broken entirely before he killed him.” 

Sally frowned. “He seemed pretty broken,” she said. Lestrade looked like he wanted to hit her. 

“Yes. He was. I…haven’t determined the reason for that yet,” said Mycroft. “It seems he found something _before_ the deaths of his friends to…break Sherlock.” He swallowed. “I’ve got some…angels trying to heal him. He…doesn’t trust us. He knows we are who we appear to be, I think. Moriarty liked to….create illusions of being one of you, and Mrs Hudson sometimes, or Miss Hooper, on occasion…” 

John nodded. “I know, I read the journals. Why does he know you are you then?”

“Because you can’t _fake_ angels. We can see each other for who we are under a vessel. So…James can’t fake being me and have Sherlock believe it. If I tell him I am Mycroft, he can clearly see this is true. James can however, fake being human. Sherlock knows I am real. And still he is afraid.” He shook his head.

“Sorry—vessel?” asked Lestrade.

“The human body we take to be able to walk around among humans,” explained Mycroft. 

Sally looked aghast. “You steal bodies?” she asked. “Sherlock’s…body has a family? And he let it get tortured?”

Mycroft sent her an annoyed look. “Sherlock has been in that particular form for sixty years. And he never had a family. Furthermore, we do not _take_. We ask. We cannot take a human vessel without permission from the human him or herself.” Sally looked read to ask another furious question, but Lestrade put a hand on her shoulder.

“Why is Sherlock still afraid of you?”

“Something in him…has broken, as we stated. And he still…rather believes that everything is a trick. We hope to get through to him soon. I must go back to him,” he said, straightening his tie. And he was gone. The three humans stared at the spot where Mycroft had vanished. 

 

Mycroft stared down at Sherlock’s barely moving body. Though it was only barely moving for a moment. He screamed, and started thrashing wildly. Mycroft called for help, and Isda and Sariel clutched at his hands, pouring calming grace into him. Finally, Sherlock did stop screaming, and lay, just gasping, still unconscious. Mycroft touched a soft hand to Sherlock’s forehead. “We’ll make you better, brother,” he whispered. “We’ll bring you back to us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Not a superheavy Sherlock chapter. Sorry. 
> 
> But it's got Mycroft! And John and Sally and Greg and Anthea aka Dina! So. Anyway, I figured John and crew needed to learn a bit more about Sherlock's past, because then certain things wouldn't make sense to them and the needed to learn them anyway. 
> 
> I might put more about the War of the Fall, as I've decided to call it later. About why Sherlock left etc. As sort of little anecdotes provided by Mycroft or James.
> 
> Also....this chapter is not edited. The others were, at least a bit, this one is not at all. So....sorry for any mistakes. Feel free to point them out.  
> Also, I have no Brit-picker, so if that gets weird, let me know about that too.


	7. Pins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a dip into Sherlocks crazy head here. 
> 
> Am I terrible for having a lot of fun writing crazy Sherlock? Probably.

Dina rubbed her eyes. Today’s video had been one of the worst yet. Apparently, James hadn’t heard that trepanning* had been outdated thousands of years ago. Still, he had seemed to relish placing the metal band around Sherlock’s head, and placing all sorts of metal objects…from ice picks to cork screws, and drilling holes into his skull. After a while, Sherlock stopped screaming. He’d left the band around Sherlock’s head for a long time, tapping at it, pulling at various metal handles, twisting a few in deeper. Dina made careful notes about where each device was inserted, and about how far. She went to find John and Lestrade as well, to see if maybe James had made a note of it in the journals. Lestrade had the journal describing it, but it only said that he’d twisted metal objects into Sherlock’s head, some likely delving into the brain itself, but that he had been healed afterward. There was no mention of how deep things had gone, or if it _had_ messed up Sherlock’s brain.

She made note of it anyway, passing the information along to Mycroft, and Sariel. It might be useful. 

 

Sherlock struggled to regain consciousness. “What’s that pet? I didn’t hear you,” whispered a voice close to his ear.

“Pins,” he mumbled. “Pins in my head.” 

The voice laughed. Cold, cruel, and absolutely gleeful. “Yes dear. Pins and pipes and huge needles and corkscrews and we had such fun, didn’t we?” Sherlock groaned, and was rewarded with a hard kick straight to his groin. His body instinctively clenched in on itself, but the pressure on his cock didn’t go away after the kick. The foot stayed there, and pressed down. Sherlock gasped, trying to breathe, trying to scream, anything. The voice was saying….something, just what, Sherlock had no idea. Then the foot was gone from his groin, concentrating instead on kicking anything else it could reach. Stomach ribs, and then there were _more_ feet, where had they come from? Kicking at his back and kidneys and legs, stomping on his knee caps and then there was a stiletto through his hand and he screamed.

The feet all disappeared, though the stiletto stayed stuck, straight through his hand. It shook, blood welling up, spilling to the floor. The shoe was lifted, bringing his hand with it, and it might have slipped off, except a gloved hand grabbed the end of the heel, and yanked him up, hard, by the shoe. He screamed again. He was slammed backward into the wall, one of his wings getting slightly caught, bending painfully. He panted, trying to get at least a little control back. James grinned, running a finger along Sherlock’s jaw. “Shh,” he whispered. “That’s it. Just….shh. Isn’t this nice?” Sherlock glared. Then, as the finger brushed his lips, bit it. James yelled and slammed his injured hand into the wall, driving the shoe in clean to the bottom.

Sherlock’s head jerked back, slamming into the wall. His vision swam, but he managed to notice, for the first time that the heel of the shoe was made of an angel blade. Not tempered in hell fire, just a regular blade. That explained the glove he supposed. He sucked in a hissing breath. “You keep fighting me Sherlock,” James whispered. “I do like it.” He twisted the shoe before pulling it out. “But please stop being boring about it.” He jammed the shoe into Sherlock’s shoulder. It was getting harder to bite back the screams. He clenched his teeth, and whimpered slightly. James clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I want to hear you scream Sherlock,” he said, and twisted the shoe. Sherlock did scream, and the shoe was removed and tossed away. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He stepped away, and Sherlock fell to the floor, cracking his knees hard. 

He glanced up, and he was alone. He sat, back against the wall, and curled his wings around him as far as they would go, arms around his knees, brought tight against his chest. 

He didn’t get to rest for long. An hour later, the cage door opened again. He stood as fast as he could, scrambling to his feet. It wasn’t fast enough and the wraith was upon him, hands clutching at his neck. She laughed, and Sherlock fell into another dizzying nightmare.

Dina paused the tape again. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. She would just make Mycroft take a turn, she thought. It was only fair, she’d been watching these for a month now. She’d watched seven months worth of footage. She knew enough that she was aware of what was coming when the wraith attacked. Sherlock didn’t say as much to James anymore. He still spat biting comments at him sometimes, but a threat to John was enough to make him stop talking.

The wraith though…she might not have been in Sherlock’s mind for the nightmares, but she could get a good idea of what he went through from the things he yelled. She’d started fast forwarding through most of the hallucinations now. She’d pause every so often, to see if there was anything new. There rarely was. Sometimes he’d start hurting himself, throwing himself against the walls, the bars, beating his head against anything he could find, clawing at his wrists until they went bloody…and she was tired of watching it. Mycroft wanted the tapes watched so badly, he could watch them.

 

Mycroft’s face was too big. Too close. Sherlock closed his eyes. Maybe it would go away. He opened his eyes. It was still there. Further away now. Drifting toward him once more. Why couldn’t he see? He whimpered a little. There was a hand on his shoulder, and he flung himself backward. No, not…he couldn’t finish the thought, couldn’t remember what had been the problem. “Sherlock!” that was his name, he knew that, that was…good, that he knew his name and…he was pressed into the corner, Mycroft coming close. No, no, he didn’t want Mycroft near him, why was he moving toward him? He moaned, trying to fit himself further into the corner. It wasn’t working, why? Why couldn’t he make himself smaller? The buzzing in his head…there was a buzzing, and it wouldn’t….stop. There was a banging now, why….buzzing changed to banging, buzzing to banging buzzing to banging, banging, banging, banging….

**_“SHERLOCK!”_ **

The voice was loud and invasive and arms were tight and…Mycroft. Why was Mycroft holding him. He was in the corner. His head hurt. There was a dent in the wall. A bit of a hole. He shivered, and slumped, energy spent. He was shaking. No…that was Mycroft. Maybe both. Both of them? The buzzing had stopped when the banging started, he remembered that. But the banging had stopped and the buzzing had come back and…. _why?_ He hated the buzzing, he knew he hated the buzzing. He groaned. He flung his head back. _BANG._

“No, no, Sherlock, you must stop, _stop.”_ Mycroft talking again. There was a choked sob. Mycroft? No. Not Mycroft. Him then. Why was…he didn’t know. Couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything. The buzzing was too loud. Getting louder. He had to make it stop, had to make it stop. He couldn’t, nothing…hands to his head, twisting, his hair was buzzing, he had to make it stop buzzing, couldn’t Mycroft see? The buzzing was driving him mad, and it was in his hair. Bees? Bees in his hair, he had to kill hem, had to get them out, why was Mycroft shouting, why was he not letting him kill the bees? He tore at his hair, he had to get them out of his head, twisted, slammed his head against the wall, screaming, screaming, and then there was no wall, only arms, too many pairs of arms and he was struggling, but he couldn’t get free, and he was trapped, and he couldn’t see, and the buzzing…darkness claimed him.

 

Sariel swallowed. They’d done too much and not enough. Sherlock had his strength back. Just as strong as Mycroft was. It had taken three of them to subdue him. Mycroft looked shattered. Sherlock was unconscious again. It seemed the only way to make sure he didn’t hurt himself. “I think it will be fine,” said Mycroft, voice calm. “Thank you for your assistance.” He wondered what more could be done. They’d healed his body, but…Sariel felt useless. He could do _nothing_ for what tatters remained of Sherlock’s mind. He felt his stomach sinking slightly. What if things didn’t get better? He felt a warm comfort spreading through him. He looked over, surprised at Isda. She gave him a soft smile. 

“We’ll figure it out,” she said softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Trepanning, if you didn't know, was the drilling of holes into people's skulls to release evil spirits that were thought to cause disease. So...I made it worse and drilled LOTS of holes.
> 
> Um....so I have some torture, some crazy Sherlock...and yeah. Maybe some more Sherlock and John next chapter?


	8. Sharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two of John's visits to Sherlock at Mycrofts.
> 
> Bit of a torture scene. 
> 
> Sherlock feels lost, John feels useless. Lestrade is confused.

For months, John visited every day. Not for long, not at first. And every time, Sherlock repeated the exercise he had on the first day. Mycroft would announce John’s presence, and Sherlock would look up, and meet John’s eyes, slightly terrified. He would check with Mycroft several times to ensure that it really was John. Mycroft explained it that he was essentially the only thing Sherlock knew definitively, was real. 

Sherlock would get up, slowly, and make his way toward John, sending looks to Mycroft. He’d carefully brush his fingers on John’s face, re-learning it every time. Occasionally, he lifted one of John’s hands and smelled it. During the third month, Sherlock started to put John’s hand on his own face, after smelling it. John did nothing the first time, and Sherlock refused to speak to him the rest of the time.

It took him most of the night, but John realized that Sherlock had been trying to let John know that it was _him_. That it wasn’t some false hallucination or someone simply pretending. That he was offering John the chance to prove it to himself, like Sherlock did for John every time. He felt a little bad now, for not mapping Sherlock’s face, as Sherlock had done to him. John didn’t need to, he knew Sherlock was real, but Sherlock…John didn’t think he understood that. _He_ needed to be sure, so John needed to test him as well. The next day, when Sherlock hesitantly put John’s hand on his cheek, John, feeling a little awkward, started moving his hand slowly over Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock was relieved. He wasn’t the same as when he’d left. He was _different_ than before. And John didn’t know, didn't know how much different he was. False John had known. Real John wouldn’t. So he’d assure him. Once he knew that it wasn’t a False John…it was Real John, with the proper smell, and feel, he’d reassure Real John too. Real John wouldn’t know. Real John would want to make sure. False John…would know already. He wouldn’t need to check to see that it was really him. He didn’t want to speak to a False John. So when John started moving fingers across his face, he was relieved.

Mycroft saw his insistence on John’s ‘re-assurance’ that he was not a hallucination as improvement. Mostly because Sariel said it was. Mycroft trusted Sariel’s judgment on such matters.

It still was taking a long time. Sherlock couldn’t get through a meeting with John without someone else there. He needed near constant reassurances from Mycroft, or Dina, Isda or Sariel that John was real. That Sherlock wasn’t making him up. That someone else wasn’t making him up for Sherlock. He trusted Mycroft the most. He knew him best. 

There were bad days. John was often ushered away on those days. Sometimes he was already there when Sherlock would suddenly panic. Very little could set him off sometimes. The sound of a car door slamming somewhere. The grandfather clock chiming. A child clicking a stick along the wrought iron fence near Mycroft’s property. John didn’t even know how Sherlock could hear some of those things. Mycroft assured him that he could. Sometimes it was more obvious what had frightened him. The car backfiring. Sometimes it was nearly impossible to figure it out. The child with the stick.

John had not known what to do the first time Sherlock had panicked. He’d started screaming, a wordless yell that shook the room, and sent John to his knees. Mycroft had sent him away. The next time it happened, Sherlock had pressed him into the corner, shaking. He hadn’t made a noise, just wrapped his arms around his knees, wings around his trembling frame. Mycroft had sent him away again. The third time, Sherlock had been screaming again. It wasn’t in what Mycroft called True Voice, just…screaming, and John got to Sherlock before Mycroft sent him away. He grabbed Sherlock by the shoulders. Mycroft decided it would be bad if John disappeared right in front of Sherlock. 

“ _Sherlock,”_ BANG BANG BANG. Echoing around what felt like a vast chamber. Everything was dark and spinning but just for a moment. It took him a moment to realize where he was. Sherlock’s memory. He was in Sherlock’s memory. He felt vaguely horrified. For a moment, he was Sherlock. He was freezing, feet cramping on the concrete floor, wrists chafing, metal shackles tight around them, a collar around his neck, large spokes digging against his skin every time he moved. There was a pain he couldn’t understand, radiating from…somewhere down into his shoulder and side. It was only a moment, and then he was forced outside Sherlock’s body, and he was watching the scene as a ghost. 

Sherlock chained to the wall, naked and shivering, trying to keep his wings around himself for warmth, though one was broken and bleeding, making every movement painful. That’s what the undetermined pain had been, he realized. John felt a little sick. There was a bit of snow under the windows. That explained the cold. Had this been the first winter? God it had been a bad one. Sherlock wasn’t as skeletal as he’d been when they’d found him, but he was still far too skinny. John wanted to reach out and just hold him. 

The banging started again. Not as loud as it had been at first. He saw the source of it then, a woman, grinning, holding a rather large metal club, clacking it against the bars. There was a man on the other side of the cage, he started doing the same. After a minute or two, both suddenly stopped running their clubs against the bars and started banging them, hard. _BANG BANG BANG._

Sherlock curled further in on himself, John clenched his teeth. Suddenly, both man and woman were in the cage with him. The banging didn’t stop. New people…demons, John realized, had continued where the first two had left off. The original tormenters stood over Sherlock. The female raised her club high, and brought it crashing down on his back. He fell, then gagged as the choke collar pulled tight. The male demon was next bringing his club down hard on the broken wing. Sherlock screamed. They didn’t stop, bringing the metal clubs down over and over again. 

Sherlock slumped against the wall and another demon approached. He had a thinner metal tube. He passed through John, and John heard his staff humming. He grinned, and plunged it into Sherlock’s side, hard. John could hear and smell the electric shock. Sherlock screamed again. _Cattle prods_? John thought, horrified. The demon didn’t stop, jamming the prod into Sherlock, deep, until he could barely breath, and was left burned and bleeding. The demons outside the cage kept running their pipes along the bars, banging them on occasion. 

The cattle prod was dropped and John felt a little sick when he saw the demon slip spiked brass knuckles on his hands. Two jabs to the sides, and then he thrust, hard into Sherlock’s armpits lifting him up. This scream was different, more broken. The demon chuckled. He tightened the choke collar’s chain, so that if Sherlock slumped, or tried to do anything but stand he’d be deeply wounded by the collar. He stepped back and the first two started in with the clubs again, beating him at the knees (John winced when he heard the kneecap break) and ribs and slamming the butt of the clubs down on his feet, leaving them pulpy, bloody messes. Sherlock collapsed once, and it nearly decapitated him, or so it looked to John, and he grunted slightly feeling like he had been the one it had happened to, not Sherlock. 

The room started to swim again, spinning into blackness, until all John could hear was the sick sound of metal hitting flesh and then nothing but the banging of metal clubs on the bars. 

Then he was dizzy and breathless, and Sherlock’s forehead was pressed against his, mercurial eyes staring pleadingly at him. John closed his eyes, trying to breath normally. God. His hands at some point, like Sherlock’s had locked in the others hair, and his fingers tightened slightly, before he relinquished his grip. 

“God Sherlock,” he whispered. “I am so, so sorry.” Sherlock didn’t answer, just tightened his own hands around John’s head, then looked to the bed again. John swallowed, before carefully lifting Sherlock, under his knees and under his arms, and slowly standing and making his way to the bed, depositing Sherlock on it. Sherlock stared at John again. “I understand,” he murmured. And he did. Why that boy clicking his stick along the fence had set Sherlock off the way it had. Normal things, taken and twisted and exaggerated, and most of them had meant pain.

Sherlock closed his eyes again. John ran his hand through Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock shivered slightly. He turned, and lay slowly on the bed. John smoothed his hair away from his forehead again, and then took his leave.

 

 

Greg Lestrade visited Sherlock for the first time one month after John started his daily visits. Sherlock, by that point, didn’t need Mycroft to stay the entire time John was there. He still required him to reassure Sherlock that he wasn’t hallucinating John, that John was _there_ , that he was _real_ , but after his initial affirmation, Sherlock was starting to trust his senses again. In some things. 

John was seated somewhat awkwardly on the bed when Lestrade entered the room with Mycroft. Sherlock was inspecting his fingers as though he’d never seen them before and wasn’t entirely sure what they did. Sherlock’s head snapped up. He stared at Lestrade, unblinking. “Hello,” said Lestrade uncertainly. Sherlock glanced at Mycroft. 

“It’s him, Sherlock,” he said softly. Sherlock stood slowly. Lestrade looked a bit nervously at the wings. 

“Hello,” he said again. Sherlock didn’t say anything. But then…he didn’t say much of anything lately. He approached slowly, almost as slowly as he had approached John the first time. Lestrade flinched slightly as Sherlock reached up to touch his face, to test it. The flinch was enough. False Lestrade wouldn’t flinch. False Lestrade would press closer, would smirk, and taunt. Still, Sherlock touched his fingers to Lestrade’s face anyway. Just because he could. And because he could tell that he was making Lestrade uncomfortable, and that was a little amusing. 

After an extended moment, John rolled his eyes. “Sherlock that’s enough. You’ve officially freaked him out now.” Lestrade had been holding himself very still. 

“He…didn’t need to do that? I thought….Mycroft said he might not trust it was me.”

“Maybe not at first. After this long though, he knows, and he’s messing with you because he knows he's freaking you out a bit.” 

Sherlock didn’t smile, but Lestrade thought maybe he saw a spark of amusement flick through his eyes. He made his way back to the bed, and sat. “That’s good, yeah?” asked Lestrade. Sherlock had started studying the duvet intently. John nodded.

“It’s good, yeah.”

Sherlock didn’t seem to be listening anymore, not having judged Lestrade a threat, and instead seemed to be trying to unravel the blanket. John sat on the bed, and lifted Sherlock’s hands. Sherlock’s fingers curled automatically around John’s. He brought the captured hands up to his face, and sniffed at them a little, before dropping them. He ran his hands through his hair and stood again, moving from the bed to the window. Lestrade looked a bit at a loss.

“Is it always like…this?” he asked softly.  
“Yes,” replied John, just as quietly. Sherlock would be able to hear them if he wanted, it didn’t matter how softly they spoke. Or even really where they were. Still, it felt odd to speak in tones any other than almost whispers. “But he’s getting better. He doesn’t need Mycroft to stay anymore, to ensure I am who I say I am,” he shrugged weakly. “You’ve been reading the journals?” Lestrade nodded, looking a little sick.

“I want to stop but…I have to know what happened you know? What he went through…how can we understand the recovery if we don’t understand what happened yeah?” 

John nodded. “It seems to be taking a long time though. He screamed a lot at first. Mycroft told me, and then…even when I was allowed to come, he screamed a lot. Muttered nonsense, I think not all of it in English.” He shrugged helplessly. “Now he doesn’t say anything.”

Sherlock stiffened suddenly, then shivered. He put both hands on his forehead, and sank to a low crouch. John swallowed. He moved forward. Lestrade looked ready to ask a question, but the words caught in his throat as John knelt, and took Sherlock’s wrists. Sherlock tilted his head, pressing his forehead against John’s. Both of their eyes closed. It lasted all of two minutes, and then Sherlock opened his eyes, and stood, facing the window again. John stood slower, looking pale and ragged.

He moved back to Lestrade.

“What was that?”

John shook his head. “Nothing. He was just…sharing.” 

Lestrade went a bit white. “He can….show you? What happened to him?” John nodded wearily.

“He does it sometimes. I think when it gets a bit too much and just starts going round and round inside his head and he can’t get it out or make sense of what he’s feeling…you know. It feels like it lasts hours. It’s just moments, really, but god, it’s always awful.”

“What was it that time?” John just shook his head, and Lestrade didn’t ask again. He didn’t really want to know. The men just stood and watched Sherlock for a long time. Mycroft re-entered the room. He always looked tired nowadays. John supposed it had something to do with caring for Sherlock as well as continuing to try and run the British Government. Some things just became habit, he thought. A job like Mycroft’s would be one of them.

They left, half reluctantly and half relieved. John hated feeling like he wanted to leave Sherlock but it was honestly draining. And he felt so _useless_. He sighed and slumped in his chair, rubbing his hand across his eyes. Sherlock would get better, he told himself. And he’d just have to be there for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. Things get worse in the next chapter. I needed to set up the Sharing system Sherlock's got going on with John, and now that I've done that....I can bring Sherlock to his breaking point.  
> So....yeah. You're gonna see what broke Sherlock.
> 
> Not brit-picked or super edited. Mistakes are likely, and they are all mine.


	9. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So. This has got sex in it. Well, rape, technically. Just in case you don't want to read that bit. It's at the end, and it is obvious when it is coming. So you are warned.

It took a long time for Sherlock to say anything even remotely understandable. And even then, it was mostly random words. John’s name; sometimes. Mutters about things being ‘false’ or ‘real.’ He still didn’t talk much. It was eight months before he looked up at John and said “Home.” John blinked at him. “ _Home,_ ” insisted Sherlock. Mycroft appeared behind John.

“He’s been saying that,” Mycroft said. “Every time he sees me.” Sherlock didn’t take his eyes off the two men at the door.

“John. _Home_ ” said Sherlock. “Now.” John glanced at Mycroft.

“Is that…possible? Could we bring him to Baker Street?” 

Mycroft sighed. “I don’t know. It is telling that he is asking you now, instead of just telling me that he wishes to go ‘home.’ He won’t tell me what home is though. If home is Baker Street or if he wants to go _home_. To heaven.”

John blinked at him, nonplussed. “Oh. Right. Well…he is telling me now. So, I guess that means Baker Street.”

“Home,” muttered Sherlock, studying his fingernails. He glanced up again, then stood and strode over to John. He grabbed him by the shoulders, and John managed to see those huge wings beat once, and then there was what felt like a lot of wind and a bit of squeezing, and two seconds later, they were standing outside 221 Baker Street. Sherlock stared calmly at the building, and John stood almost shuddering, clutching at his chest as if it would help calm his heart. People hadn’t seemed to notice them seem to just appear out of nowhere. But they did notice the wings. Sherlock didn’t seem to notice them. 

And then Mycroft was there, looking shaken, and people started just walking by again, paying no attention to the rather odd group. Mycroft opened the door, and all three moved up to B. Sherlock walked slowly up the stairs, as if he was remembering how. John walked into the flat first, then Mycroft. Sherlock stood hesitantly at the door.

“Are we going to discuss…” began John, only to be interrupted by Mycroft.  
“Later,” he hissed. Sherlock stepped through the doorway, and shivered. He started moving carefully about the flat. 

It wasn’t exactly as he had left it, and that was…good. It was different enough from the forced hallucinations that he didn’t feel panicked or lost or unsure. He touched the skull gingerly. He whirled to face John, held out his hand. 

John swallowed. He still hated these….sharing sessions. But the relief in Sherlock’s eyes afterward was always so palpable. And John could do nothing else to help him. He stepped forward, felt Sherlock’s hands cupping his face and bringing their foreheads together. There was the now familiar sickening swirl of color and sound, and the moment in Sherlock, feeling everything he had felt before he was forced to watch as a spectator.

Sherlock crouched next to the wall, hands chained. One wing hung awkwardly next to him, the other was pinned to the wall, sticking through the bars of the cage. The door banged and Sherlock pressed himself against the wall, hands going to his head. “No, no, no, nonononono…” he began to moan. Whatever had broken him had already happened, John realized. The thought made him sick. He hadn’t seen Sherlock broken in these visions before. He’d seen him beaten bloody, tortured with visions, but always fighting back, always with hatred in his eyes. This time…he was just terrified.

“Stop it,” snapped Moriarty, and John felt instantly ill. Moriarty looked like him. Mycroft had explained the wraith, that she could essentially make Sherlock see whatever she wanted. John’s form was apparently a common visitor to Sherlock’s cell. 

“Not real,” muttered Sherlock. “False, false John. No, please…” 

“Get up,” said Moriarty as John. Sherlock didn’t move. “I said; Get. _UP_ ;” He screamed the last word, and Sherlock got slowly to his feet. John could see his legs trembling with the effort. 

Moriarty moved fast, forcing the other wing to spread, slamming the knife home. Sherlock screamed. And then Moriarty, still looking like John, was pressed up against Sherlock. He rolled his hips slightly, pressing against Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock whimpered slightly. “Hands up,” sung Moriarty. Sherlock didn’t move. John was not sure where the riding crop came from. He assumed it had been conjured. “Get. Your. Hands. In. The. Air. _Now._ ” Each word was accompanied by a terrifyingly loud snap of crop against skin. Sherlock slowly raised his hands in the air. His ribs were already purpling. [i]Broken[/i] thought John. At least two of them. 

Moriarty took another blade from out of nowhere, pressed himself tight against Sherlock once more. He touched the blade to nipple, made a small cut. Sherlock moaned. Moriarty laughed. He cut, with the knife at Sherlock’s now exposed armpits, digging the blade in nearly to the hilt, seeming to relish the cry. John hissed slightly, watching the knife appear between the bones of the shoulder and collar bone. Moriarty pulled it away, and then placed it, blade side first, against Sherlock’s chest. He pressed a kiss at his neck. 

John swallowed, feeling like he was going to throw up as Moriarty-as-John edged up Sherlock’s neck, his jaw…and pressing his lips against Sherlock’s. And Sherlock…just accepted it.

“No!” John yelled. Or he tried. At the moment he didn’t precisely have a body, or vocal chords, so yelling was impossible. Moriarty pulled away, smirking into Sherlock’s dead eyes. Sherlock lowered his hands, holding them at Moriarty’s chest level. The knife was still pressed against Sherlock’s chest, John could see the blood dripping from the ever growing wound.

Moriarty’s other hand drifted down, finger sliding along the length of Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock shivered. “You don’t want me,” murmured Moriarty. “You want John. But if he’s dead…you won’t have anyone to hope for.” Sherlock froze. He muttered something that sounded like ‘promise’. Moriarty leaned in close. “I lied,” he whispered. “You think what I’ve done to you is unpleasant? Watch me to it to _him_ ” 

Sherlock moved then, smashing his lips against Moriarty’s. John felt hopelessly lost. What was happening? Moriarty grinned, and…the best John could describe it was flickered and then pulled away, once more looking like the Jim Moriarty he had met at the pool. “That’s more like it,” he said. And leaned in for another kiss. John could see his erection growing, pressing against Sherlock’s slowly hardening cock. He kept rolling his hips to stimulate friction. 

John only saw what happened next because he was far enough away. Sherlock’s hands, on Moriarty’s chest, moved from the shirt, slowly, then were holding his hands lightly. The other barely noticed, enjoying the kiss, loving the fact that Sherlock’s body was reacting. He read the additional movement as further arousal. And then Sherlock moved, faster than John would have thought he could. The knife, though pressed against his chest, was now being only very loosely held by Moriarty. 

In one motion, Sherlock, slid his hand from Moriarty’s hand to the knife. He wrenched it away and up, jamming it straight into Moriarty’s neck. He stumbled back, surprised, clutching at his throat. He wasn’t healing. The blade stuck through his head, slick with red. There was a bright white light, which rather hurt John, and Moriarty lay, spread eagled on the floor, ashes of wings stretched out to either side of him, as they had found him.

Sherlock groaned, and sunk to a low crouch. “Why?” he muttered. “Why, he…I don’t think he could…and dead now, dead. But tricking…always with tricks, and John and…I can’t…” He didn’t seem to be able to hold onto a thought, just muttering and sometimes giving out a little scream as he seemed to see something John couldn’t. It was the longest vision Sherlock had sent him, though it did start speeding up slightly. Things bled together, and paused as Sherlock let out a scream. A window broke. He wrapped his arms around his legs. And Sherlock waited for the next trick, for the next bout of pain. Because, though he could see Moriarty, dead on the floor, it wasn’t real. It was never real. And so he waited. He waited for Moriarty to drag him back to the real world, from where he would never, ever escape. 

Moriarty’s spells and sigils had lost their power when he’d died. Two boys snuck into the warehouse. Probably to drink and smoke. They saw the dead body, saw the chained and injured Sherlock and took off running. Sherlock screamed after them. The colors shifted, John felt he was spinning, and then he was back in Baker Street, gasping, Mycroft looking concerned, and Sherlock looking frighteningly dead eyed again.

“Sherlock?” he asked, shakily. Sherlock gave a little nod, then pulled away, reacquainting himself with the flat again. He stared at the sofa, then sat, slowly, looking up, as if to ask if he was right to do it. Mycroft sighed. 

“I think…I will take my leave. If you need anything at all, just call,” he said, vanishing.  
________________________________________________________________________

It a little more than a week before Sherlock panicked again. John didn’t know what set him off, but he’d been asleep, and when he woke up, he looked at John and started screaming. He backed away from him, and John saw the wings beat once before he vanished. John stayed stunned for almost a minute before panicking. Sherlock was gone and that…could not be good.

Sherlock sat on an empty table, eyes fixed on the door. The morgue was nice. He had never once been here in the hallucinations. He was a little confused as to how he’d actually gotten here, but he was getting used to flying again. That was nice. Molly came through the door, and gave a startled scream to see him, sitting cross-legged on the table. There was a crash as she dropped her tray of instruments.  
“I’m…dreaming, right? This is just a dream. You…you died, they said you died and… you have wings. But that’s…that’s crazy…” Sherlock was up and moving toward her, picking up the instrument tray and handing it back to her. She almost dropped it again. All the instruments were on it and in place. 

Sherlock just stared at her. “True, Molly,” he murmured, touching her face lightly, cupping it with one hand. “Real.” She froze. Sherlock was acting very oddly. She still was only have sure he was there, and the trick with the tray wasn’t helping. But his hand on her face…that was so very real. 

“Um…” she said, “Yes. I’m real. And…so are you?” He took the tray, set it on the table, and took her hand, putting it against his own face. As he had with John. She still hardly believed he was there. So she moved her hands over it carefully. She moved her hands carefully, slowly, over the scars on his shoulders and torso and arms, glancing up to his face on occasion, to make sure it was still alright. He didn’t move, just watched her, relieved. She was real. She had always been real. There hadn’t _been_ any hallucinations of her, apart from that first one, so long ago it was more a dream than anything else. “Real,” he murmured again.

Finally he backed away, and started inspecting the morgue. He found the boy she’d been about to autopsy, and inspected it, starting to mutter to himself. “Heart? Mmm. Bad heart. Liver. Allergic…carrots. Garden....planter…” he kept murmuring to himself in this manner, strings of words, some of which made sense to Molly, some of which did not. In some ways, it wasn’t as different from when he used to come into the morgue before. In other ways…it was so much worse. 

“Um…Sherlock?” she asked, quietly. “Does…does John know you are here? Alive I mean?” Sherlock looked up at his name, blinked at John’s. Slowly, he tilted his head to the side. He wasn’t sure how to answer that. He didn’t move. She tried again. “He knows…you are alive?” He slowly nodded. “He…knows where you are?” Sherlock shook his head. “Can…can we call him?” she asked. He tilted his head to the side again. She could do what she wanted really. He was calm again. Unafraid. “I’m going to call him, alright?” He didn’t answer, just turned back to the body again. 

“Um…John? It’s Molly…Sherlock is in the morgue…he’s got…wings.”

John got to Saint Barts in record time. He stood, chest heaving next to Molly, having run all the way to the basement. She was standing awkwardly near the door as Sherlock poked around the morgue. She watched him uncertainly. “He’s got…wings.” John nodded. He did his best to explain. Sherlock was an angel, he’d been tortured by another angel, the man they thought was Moriarty, that he’d basically shattered his mind, and they were trying to pick up the pieces.

“Well…he did just determine everything wrong with the dead man. And a few things that I don’t think had anything to do with the fact that he was dead. Like…he was a gardener. So, maybe he isn’t _totally_ shattered?” she asked hopefully. John glanced up at Sherlock who was inspecting an electric saw, used for cutting open the chest cavity, and turned it on by accident. He dropped it, leaping backward, a vaguely panicked look on his face. Molly winced as the blade broke when it hit the floor. Sherlock caught the look on her face and immediately his face changed, from fearful, to guilty. He picked up the saw, and set it back on the table. The blade was perfect. He stood away from the table.

“Can we go home now?” John asked him. Sherlock tilted his head to the side, and shuffled his wings. John managed to catch hold of him before the two of them were swept from the morgue and back at Baker Street. John felt a little ill, as he always seemed to after angelic transportation. “You gonna tell me what upset you this morning?” Sherlock hesitated, then slowly brought his forehead to Johns. He was already shaking.

There was the sick sensation of falling, of spinning. Of briefly being in an intense amount of pain as he shared Sherlock’s body, before being forcibly ejected. Sherlock was crouched, wearily, wings drooping around him. They didn’t look as broken as they had in previous visions, which was good, John supposed. His head snapped up. Two demons came, a third behind them. The first two grabbed at his arms, pulling him over to the side of the cage. He struggled, John was glad to see. Sherlock struggling was always good.

It was of no use, of course, he was weak, that much was obvious. And John didn’t like the look of his purple-red ribs. The demons that had forced him to the bars were lashing him there, with some rather painful looking rope. His wrists were already bleeding, and he’d barely pulled against it. The third demon stepped forward, a fire poker in her hand. It was glowing red. She trailed it down Sherlock’s back, and he arched it, jerking forward as much as he could. She played the poker down around his hips, over his arse cheeks, skimming the crack between them. John had a sudden, horrid sense of foreboding. John saw Moriarty enter the room, though Sherlock wouldn’t have been able to. There were quite a few people with him. Demons, John knew by now.

The woman with the poker slipped it between the arse cheeks, spreading them, burning him slowly. She let the poker drift down, skimming the balls, and then she struck, hard, at the insides of Sherlock’s thighs, forcing his legs apart.

John didn’t want to see this. He knew he didn’t want to see this. Somewhere, far away, Sherlock’s fingers tightened on the back of his head. 

John watched, as the demon circled Sherlock’s hole, then, without warning, jammed the poker up as far as it would go. Sherlock screamed. John almost didn’t hear it over his own yell. The demon laughed, removing the poker slowly. Somewhere, he began aware of Morarty standing nearby. Watching. Smiling. John thought he might throw up. There were more demons now. In male and female bodies. Two of them started rubbing up against Sherlock, and a third, a different one, male this time, slipped behind Sherlock, taking the place of the female with the fire poker. He dropped his trousers, pressed his cock against Sherlock’s arse. He slowly entered him, started thrusting. Sherlock screamed again. Blood was already trickling down the backs of his legs. “You’re _tight_ ," whispered the demon in Sherlock’s ear. “So very, very tight.” His fingers left bruises on Sherlock’s hips. 

He pulled out, cock red with Sherlock’s blood, dripping with cum. “Next!” he yelled with a laugh. 

Sherlock’s body reacted in ways that Sherlock clearly hated. One demon, was almost gentle, easing into him, slowly. He used a finger first, slicked with spit, sliding it slowly into Sherlock’s entrance, crooking his finger. He prepared Sherlock gingerly, though the other demons jeered and told him to go faster. Moriarty said nothing. He watched, licking his lips occasionally. The demon inserted a second finger, other hand drifting around Sherlock’s hip and palming his cock. He stroked down, languidly, twice, and Sherlock moaned. He started getting hard. The demon bit at Sherlock’s shoulder, then carefully guiding himself in, entering Sherlock almost as slowly as he had with his fingers. He rocked his hips slowly at first, picking up speed. His other hand he left on Sherlock’s cock, stroking it in time to his thrusts. Sherlock groaned again, body reacting positively. Moving his hips along with the others, cock weeping pre-cum. Sherlock yelled, and came, and the demon pulled out, looking satisfied. He let Sherlock watch him lick the come off his hand. Sherlock closed his eyes and shivered. There were tear tracks down his cheeks.

John lost track of how many of them took their turn with Sherlock. The females tended to use sharp objects of varying sizes, rustiness, sharpness…the males all used their own cocks, plunging into him over and over again. Moriarty healed him occasionally, the result being he would be forced open anew every third penetration, ensuring that he remained tight, that each object, whether it be flesh or metal was as painful as possible as it entered, tearing him time and time again. 

Sherlock’s body was a mess of bruises and welts. Finally, _finally_ Moriarty clicked his fingers and Sherlock collapsed to the ground, moaning. The demons disappeared. John blinked, as suddenly the room was empty of all but Sherlock and Moriarty. But when Sherlock looked up, Moriarty looked like John. Like _John._ John thought he knew what was coming. 

“John?” croaked Sherlock, eyes hopeful, tired. And frightened. 

“Shh,” said Moriarty/John, slowly approaching Sherlock and carefully drawing him to his feet, pulling him into a hug. “It’s alright,” he whispered. “I’m here now.”

“Not…false….so many false John’s….”

“No. No, Sherlock, I am real. You are safe.”

“….Demons….”

“They’re gone.” He lifted a hand and cupped Sherlock’s face. “I am real, Sherlock. I swear I am real.”

The real John felt ill. What…he sounded just like John himself. This was….he shuddered again. He didn’t want to watch this. He knew Sherlock wouldn’t let him look away. He wanted John to _understand_. 

The past Sherlock clutched at the man he thought was his friend. “So…I hurt, John,” he rasped out. “Everything….hurts.” 

“I’m here now. I’ll make the pain go away,” promised Moriarty. He leaned up on his tip toes, pressed deep kiss to Sherlock’s lips. His hand drifted to Sherlock’s cock, brushing lightly against it. It twitched slightly. Moriarty grinned against Sherlock’s lips. “You want it,” he murmured. “It’s John and you want it, even after what just happened.” He pulled away, and he was himself again, and Sherlock fell back against the wall, eyes wide.

He screamed. And John could see something _break_ in him then, something in his eyes. John wasn’t real. So what _could_ be? He collapsed in on himself, and Moriarty’s laughter didn’t move him. That dead look in Sherlock’s eyes, that hadn’t really gone away….John saw it in him in this vision. 

Everything tightened, and he was pulled back onto the floor of their sitting room again. He was crying. He couldn’t breathe. He felt arms around him, and he clutched at Sherlock. This felt wrong. Backwards. He should be comforting Sherlock. Though after what he had just seen….he doubted he would be very comforting at all. It was amazing Sherlock trusted him at all. 

“I am so, so sorry Sherlock,” he breathed against his neck. “I am so, _so_ sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's how Sherlock got broken.  
> I am not great at writing sex, so, sorry for it.  
> Sorry it took so long to get up too. But I don't have as much time right now, so updates will be scattered.


	10. Remembering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit more of Sherlock whump in the beginning. Some sexual themes. Not super-explicit, but, explicit enough. Some language.
> 
> Sherlock's recovery, some more. A walk in the park that takes an interesting turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been....a long time since I've updated. Sorry about that. I've had this chapter...or versions of it, in my mind for a while. There are a few things that might come back next chapter. I am thinking, only one or two more, and then this story will be finished.
> 
> It isn't very long.

Sherlock still had dreams. And sometimes, if John was unlucky enough to be touching Sherlock when they happened, John had dreams too. 

…It hadn’t been the first time that they had fucked Sherlock. It wasn’t even they first time more than one of them had done it. But, it had been the most brutal. The most in succession. And the first time Moriarty had used John’s face to do it. He had taken the last sacred thing Sherlock possessed, his one lingering…fantasy, and destroyed it. He had ripped up Sherlock’s hope and smashed them beneath his feet. 

Sherlock cowered in the corner of the cage. What was the point in fighting? He was tired of hurting, tired of making things worse for himself. It was better…to simply let things happen. Except…it didn’t work like that either. Because he was also terrified. All the time, terrified. He didn’t know what was real. Unless it hurt. If there was pain, he knew it was real. It was impossible to fabricate pain. At least, pain like this. And he wanted to feel, and he was terrified of what new horrors would come for him when that cage door opened, and so he screamed when it did. He pleaded. Begged. Nothing worked, of course….

….He was chained, arms stretched above his head, feet not touching the floor. His shoulders ached. There was something hard and unforgiving up his arse. At least it wasn’t moving. Sometimes they moved. Moriarty was pacing in circles around him, saying something. Probably something threatening, but Sherlock didn’t hear any of it. His eyes were on the whip. Though of course, it was when he couldn’t see it that it was used. He screamed….

…Moriarty didn’t fuck him anymore. He left it up to others. To the demons mostly. It was never quite as bad as it had been. Though two at once, was a bit…much. They usually chained him to the side of the cage, or to the roof of it. Once, they cut him down early, and his kneecaps smashed into the floor. The demon in front of him lowered it’s pants. “Suck” it said. “An’ if you bite, I’ll do the same to John while you watch. Then I’ll kill ‘im.” And so Sherlock had taken the man’s cock in his mouth and sucked until his jaw was screaming and his throat burning. And then, hot liquid spurting in his mouth. He choked, and a hand covered his mouth. “You swallow. You swallow or it’s the same as if you bit.” Sherlock had done as instructed, though he was dimly aware of a part of his mind screaming. But he couldn’t really reach that part anymore. Easier to do what he was told….

…It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. He pressed his hands to his ears, moaning. There had been feet, two pairs, and the smell of alcohol, and then screaming, something smashing and running. Just a trick. A trick. He’d screamed. And now…so many feet. His vision swam. But it wasn’t real. Just another trick. Another trick of the wraith, to have Moriarty dead at his feet, to have the Yard surrounding him, Lestrade begging him to calm down, that they were there to rescue him. Time passed slowly and then quickly, and John was there, and it was horrible, because no one had pretended to be John in a long time. He screamed, he wanted everyone to leave, he wanted the hallucinations to just stop. And then…Mycroft was there. And finally, something real, because you can’t replicate angels, their bodies, sure, but their grace…and Sherlock could see Mycroft’s real face under the semi-fleshy politician, and he was relieved. And then, he remembered where he was and he tried to back away, he didn’t want Mycroft to see him like this. And then…for a long time, he remembered nothing.

Learning what was real took….a long time. He had to be sure, he had to feel things for himself. And even then, he needed Mycroft to prove it. To tell him it was alright. That it was John. Or Lestrade. He didn’t really remember much English. It was easier to speak in Enochian. Or in one of the other languages of the angels. Mycroft wanted him to speak in English though. As did John, so he tried. In the end, it was exhausting, so mostly, he didn’t speak at all, not for a long time. 

Re-learning it wasn’t too difficult. Re-learning to speak it wasn’t hard either. He simply couldn’t be bothered a lot of the time. And John seemed to understand him well enough without it anyway. 

He was glad of Molly. Molly, who had never been used against him, whose image was never false. She was a little frightened of him, at first, and then, he could tell she also pitied him, and neither was pleasant, but it was better to be sure of himself. And sometimes John didn’t seem quite real. At least he could fly again.

Sherlock knew he was getting better. Though he was still too scared all of the time. He was still lost. He hated John’s pity. But he needed John there. And the pity was getting less and less. It was…something else, something he couldn’t quite name, that kept John here now. And he tried for John. He wanted to get better, for John. His life as a detective seemed almost like a dream. He remembered everything, but felt very little attachment to it. Still, he remembered that he liked Lestrade, when he came around. Which wasn’t often. 

He finally managed to hide his wings. He supposed that meant they were healthy again, than he could slip them away, out of reach of human perception. That was good. They still worked then. And he didn’t have to worry about hurting them again. John was pleased too, he could tell. Because it meant that maybe things could be normal again. Even if he still wasn’t talking much. And Sherlock didn’t want to disillusion him. Maybe because he too wanted to think that things could be normal again. He’d almost forgotten what hope felt like.

 

 

It was a day out. They hadn’t had one of those….in a long time. John hadn’t had once since even before Sherlock was found, and certainly not after. But Sherlock had wanted to go out for some time, and Mycroft had deemed him well enough, and they found themselves in the nearby park. Sherlock had almost immediately relieved himself of shoes and socks and started wandering about the grass. It was a little concerning to John, that someone might recognize him. But he didn’t really look the same. He was subdued, in a way he’d never been before. He didn’t have the coat anymore, and certainly not the hat. John watched him carefully, as he wandered around the park.

Sherlock stared at the little pond in the center. It was…a sad pond, he thought. The green waters weren’t at all healthy. He crouched, and stuck a finger in the water. It came out discolored. “I don’t think yer s’pposed ta touch it,” said a voice behind him. He turned. There was a boy holding a ball…Sherlock stared at it, trying to place what _kind_ of ball it was, round and covered with tiny black and white hexagons. 

“No?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the ball. He stuck the finger into his mouth. The boy looked horrified.

“You’ll turn into a mutant if you touch that stuff!” he said, appalled. 

“Doubtful.” How else was he supposed to figure out just what was in the water? The boy scowled at him.

“D’ya ever talk, ‘cept in one word?” he demanded. Sherlock didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing, just tilted his head and started at the boy, before turning his attention back to the ball again. He knew this. Something to do with a body part. “S’gross ya know,” said the boy, and Sherlock assumed he was back on the topic of the water. Humans jumped tracks so quickly. “My mum says that even the fish in this pond die.” Sherlock frowned. That didn’t sound good at all. And he knew from his taste of the water that it was definitely bad. He heard John stand, start walking over. He had about a minute before he arrived. So he had to work fast. He turned and crouched. John was running now. Sherlock placed his whole hand in the pond, and just as John yelled for him to stop, the pond cleared, no sign of green gunk anywhere. There were even a few fish. Sherlock had transported them from a nearby pet store, which was probably bad, but the fish preferred not to be in glass boxes anyway. 

“Blimey,” whispered the boy.

“Shit,” was John’s comment. He’d realized Sherlock was going to do something stupid quite quickly after he noticed him standing by the pond. He seemed to be talking with a young boy who had chased a football over to where Sherlock was, and that was odd in and of itself. Sherlock had been mostly confining himself to one word answers, though occasionally, he said more. He never spoke to strangers. Maybe the fact that it was a child…John watched, stunned into stillness when Sherlock put his finger into his mouth, tasting the water. And when he turned around, John had a horrible feeling that he knew what Sherlock was going to do. He stood and started walking. Sherlock seemed to know, and he started moving faster. “No!” he called. Too late. The pond was perfect and clean. Probably not a trace of pollution in it at all. And there were fish. “Shit.” He ignored the boy.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded.  
Sherlock simply shrugged, and dipped his hand back into the pond. “You do realize that if there is no pollutants in that thing, as soon as it rains those fish will die.” Sherlock gave him a dirty look. The one that said _I am not an idiot_. Of course not. Still, it wasn’t something he thought Sherlock would think of. He sighed. Then looked at the boy, who was still looking at Sherlock like he was magic. Which, John supposed he was. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said, tiredly. The boy looked up at John. 

“Wha’?” he asked. “Why not? He’s brilliant! He’s magic, he fixed the pond n’everyhin’.” 

John nodded. “Yeah. But…you know. Can’t have knowledge like that getting out. It’s…it’s a bit secret, alright? Secret powers and all that, like the comics.” The boy considered that, then nodded seriously.

“Right,” he said. “I understand. But…” he swallowed. “If he can fix ponds, can he fix people?” John looked hopelessly at Sherlock. Sherlock looked at the boy, and said nothing. The boy continued anyway. “I...my sister,” he said hesitantly, ignoring his friends calling for him to get his arse over to them with the bloody ball. “She’s…dad says she’s sick. And she prob’ly’ll die.” Sherlock thought for a long moment. Then he reached into his pocket, and pulled out an old vial. A test tube, that must have been in this old coat for ages. He filled it up with the water, and handed it to the boy.

“Careful,” he said. “Make her drink.” The water would heal the girl. “Quickly,” he added, gesturing for the boy to go, now. He dropped the football where he stood and started running. 

John watched hopelessly. “What was that?” he asked. Sherlock shrugged. 

“Brain tumor.” John froze.

“The little sister?” Sherlock nodded. “And the water will…heal her?” Sherlock nodded again. “Could you…could you have done it from here?” Another nod. That made him a little mad. “Well? Why didn’t you?” he demanded.

“I did,” said Sherlock calmly, shaking water off his hands and feet as he walked away from the pond. “The water is…physical. For the boy.” It was the most Sherlock had said in a long time. John found himself a little floored. He hoped it meant that Sherlock would start speaking again. It had been more than a year since he’d been back, and recovery seemed to be going slowly. So he nodded slowly, though he wasn’t sure he understood. Sherlock seemed to know this, because he sighed in exasperation. He didn’t explain himself further, just started walking back to their shoes. It had been enough of a walk for one day.

John followed him a little weakly, trying to puzzle through Sherlock’s words. Sherlock was not inclined to explain himself, and he was glad that John didn’t ask. He was tired. He wasn’t fully healed yet. Hopefully, it would be soon. He almost smiled. It was interesting, hoping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I tried to have Sherlock starting to get a little better. He is still far from perfect, he is still weak. He does have a reason for helping the boy and his sister. It will be explained in the next chapter I think. 
> 
> If there is something you guys would like to see, please let me know. I have some interactions, some...incidents planned that may or may not make an appearance in the story. So, if there is something or someone you'd like to see Sherlock interact with, please comment.


	11. Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More torture. More recovery. Not much else to say here.

Lights. Lights and sound and something moving and everything was blurring together. And then all at once, it stopped. Everything was dark. Still. There was just….nothing.  
Waking up was…terrifying. It was always terrifying, but this time it was frightening in the sheer alienness of it all. He wasn't cold. Or in pain, or uncomfortable at all. There was something soft under him, something warm on top and it smelled…of lilac which was odd and something cracked nearby and he was screaming again. Because surely this was some new torture. And he wasn't sure he could handle this, to be teased so with warmth and comfort to have it ripped away, likely in the worst ways possible.  
Footsteps and then Mycroft was there and how strange was that? Was he joining in now? Where was…Sherlock couldn't breathe. He was disoriented and frightened. Mycroft was saying something to him, hands on Sherlock's bony shoulders. And then Mycrofts' face blurred and morphed into blackness again.  
Sherlock's head lolled against the pillow. No control…and his wings, they were burning they were on fire and he was screaming again, flinging himself against the wall, he had to put out the fire. Two angels were grabbing him, and he didn't know them and he panicked, striking out with feet and fists, though neither made much of an impact. They wouldn't let him put out the fire, why wouldn't they let him….and then Mycroft was there with a hand on his neck, and then he could breathe again. And Mycrofts' arms were around him and Sherlock sagged against his brother.  
For a long time, nothing made sense. There would be food, and when he could be convinced to eat it, he always got sick. But it was never followed by a beating. He'd be gently cleaned, and Mycroft would say things in that same worried tone that he always had that seemed….odd, for Mycroft, though Sherlock could never remember _why_ it was odd.  
He dreamed, every night. Nightmare upon nightmare, slowly building up inside his head, and they just kept getting worse. Mycroft didn't understand, he thought that Sherlock was getting better. He tried to explain, but there were no words in their tongue to describe how he was feeling. And English felt dull and heavy in his mouth, on his lips.  
John helped exponentially. Being able to share with John, to _show_ him…Each time, he felt a little lighter. As if the memories and dreams had weight, and by showing them to someone, he was removing a little bit of the burden from himself. John didn't seem like he was letting them, the memories, crush him. Or even weigh him down. That was good. It meant that Sherlock could keep showing him. John wanted to help, and really, this was the best way, at least in Sherlock's mind. He couldn't carry this by himself, and John could. 

Baker Street was…much, much better than Mycrofts home. It actually felt like someplace he wanted to be. It felt like someplace that _wanted_ him there. Mycfofts house was just…well. It was big, and beautiful, and full of valuable things. It was a lot like heaven, actually. And very much not for him. Baker Street was _his_. It was small and cluttered and full of things that maybe weren't valuable, but they were _important_ and that meant so, so much more. 

John was happy to have him here, though he worried incessantly. Sherlock wanted to tell him that it would be alright, that he was fine, he was home. But he wasn't really fine at all, and they both knew it. And talking, lately, had just seemed to be so much extra effort that he didn't feel like dealing with at all. English felt wrong on his tongue. All the little rules and regulations felt tiny and insignificant and he simply didn't care. He could get his point across with out using words. And John more or less accepted that, taking Sherlock's impressions and images and using those to communicate, though he begged him to use his words almost daily. Sometimes Sherlock complied. Other times he did not.

He cursed his weakness, because he was still contained to this human form. He was still weak, needed to eat and sleep to kep breathing. He needed to breathe which was annoying too. He was so much more human than he'd ever been and he hated it. He remembered before, when he'd been brought cases to solve. He'd liked that. He rather thought he'd like to try again, though lately, focus was not something he was very good at. His mind skipped tracks like a broken record, hopping from one to the next in the middle of a thought, only to shift back to the first several days, or even weeks later, as if he'd never stopped thinking about it. It was part of what made talking frustrating. He'd start sentences and forget to finish them for hours, filling the interim time with new thoughts, new ideas. It was easier not to talk at all. He had to get his mind under control. He had to make it his own again. 

 

He was tied down on a cold metal slab. His wrists and feet were bound with leather cuffs, inscribed with sigils to render an angel at full power weak. It was unnecessary on him, but it did his job. He could feel what little power he had left being muted, stifled. He struggled briefly, but a cruel looking man grinned down at him, eyes white and gleaming. It seemed that Moriarty had pulled some strings to get hell's most proficient torturer here.  
"Now, now," he said, voice smooth as silk. "None of that, angel. None of that. Don't want you hurting yourself." His grinned widened. "I'll be doing plenty of that myself." He held up a wicked looking scalpel. Sherlock's eyes widened. He knew what the demon had planned. "Yes, they said you were a clever one. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. I've done it to so many human souls. Though never on an angel. And the humans never knew what was coming till it was happening.  
"No," whispered Sherlock, "God, no." The demon whipped the scalpel down, cutting a gash across Sherlock's cheek.  
"No God here," he hissed. "He can't hear you, no one can. Your precious Father is dead angel. He won't help you now. There's no one. No one but me." And he made the incision, straight down Sherlock's torso. He screamed. The demon didn't stop cutting, making two more cuts from the shoulders, meeting the center line. Sherlock was shaking, unable to even scream as the skin was pulled away, leaving his rib cage exposed. The demon grinned at him. "Ready nurse, for the autopsy?" he asked, and there was a low chuckle from a demon Sherlock hadn't seen before. A young woman strode up to the table.  
"I got the spreaders," she said gleefully.  
"Hand them over dear," he said, and she complied, before leaning down to Sherlock's ear.  
"You know what's gonna happen next," she whispered. "He's gonna crack those ribs wiiiiiiiiiiide open. And play with your insides." Sherlock whimpered. The demons looked at each other with obvious pleasure. And then Sherlock was screaming again as his ribs were cracked open and pushed wide. He wasn't screaming for long, as blackness overtook him.  
Relief was short lived, as an electric shock sent him all but shrieking toward consciousness. The demon bitch was grinning at him still, what looked like a small cattle prod aimed directly at his heart. He assumed. He couldn't see much except skin and his broken ribs, red and dripped peaking out over his chest cavity. The man 'tsked' at him. "Come on now. That's cheating. Mr Moriarty won't like that at all, will he." It wasn't a question, however much it might be phrased as one. The male demon gently pushed the electrical tool away, and the girl stood back, setting it down where Sherlock couldn't see her or it. And then the demon man plunged his hand into Sherlock and grabbed his heart, and started squeezing. "I trust you are familiar," he whispered, "with the story of Prometheus?" And somehow, through the haze of pain, Sherlock did know exactly what had happened to Prometheus. He tried to scream but all he could d was cough. "Sadly," the demon continued, "I don't have anything as majestic as an eagle." He gestured, and the girl came forward again, a rather large rat in her hands. "This will have to do." She made sure Sherlock got a look at it, before the demon nodded. "Put it in and close him up."

 

John awoke to screaming. He had been sleeping in the same room as Sherlock, and was attuned to the whimpers, he'd thought, that preceded most of his nightmares. On this night though, Sherlock had been silent until the screaming started. John didn't wake until Sherlock was shrieking to wake the dead, hands clawing at his stomach, red lines appearing on pale flesh, already bleeding. "It's in me!" he shrieked. "No! No! Get it out! Get it _out!!_ " He was half sobbing, and John couldn't grab hold of his wrists. Sherlock had most of his strength, and pushing John away was no harder than pushing away a flea. "Rats, rats," he sobbed, "get it out, get it out, no, no, no, _please_." John felt sick.  
He screamed for Mycroft who was there in an instant with Isda, and the two of them managed to subdue Sherlock so he couldn't hurt himself anymore. John tried to wake him for nearly five minutes before he stopped thrashing and his eyes lost that blank, unseeing look. He was panting and still sobbing slightly. "There's nothing inside you Sherlock," said John. "Except for what is meant to be there. No rats." Sherlock nodded, then panicked again as he felt his arms still held captive. He started to scream again, as Mycroft all but shoved John out of the way.  
"It's alright. It's just me. I have you, alright? You are still safe." Sherlock took several deep breaths, trying to calm down.  
"Dreams," he whispered. "Just dreams."  
Mycroft didn't go home for nearly three days after that, until Sherlock all but kicked him out the window. What he actually did, was banish Mycroft outside the flat, and refused to let the protections down to let him back in again, and eventually Mycroft had texted John, told him to keep Sherlock out of trouble and to call him if there was more incidents, and gone home. Sherlock was extremely pleased with himself for the rest of the day. 

 

It was nearly a month and a half after what John called the Pond Incident, and two months after the Dream Incident, that Sherlock decided he wanted another day out. John had tried to steer him away from the park, but Sherlock was absolutely adamant. He hadn't even thought about it until three days ago, when the little boy had turned up at Baker Street. Sherlock had opened the door before John could protest, and the boy had started with babbled thanks. "She's all better sir, the doctors didn't know what to say, and she had to be in the hospital for another week, but she's all better and your water did it. Thank you, thanks sir, I mean, really." and he hadn't seemed likely to stop, so Sherlock had merely nodded once, and shut the door on his face. John had gone to apologize, but the boy was gone, and in his place was a piece of paper with a drawing of Sherlock dressed as a superhero. Sherlock didn't care, when John had shown him, though a little pleased feeling ran through John that he was pretty sure actually belonged to Sherlock. He supposed it was a good thing that Sherlock was pretending not to care about it. He never would have shown that he cared about something so sentimental before. John decided to take it as a sign that Sherlock was getting better. But he kept the picture, putting it in a box that he kept under his bed, slipping the paper underneath his war medals and next to the last picture he'd taken with his father before the man had died. Sherlock could claim it later, if he wanted.

But after the boy had come, Sherlock had started feeling the pull of _Outside_ again, and finally, John had agreed. Sherlock was quietly pleased to be going out, and John could feel it occasionally, bubbling across whatever link Sherlock (or Mycroft, he honestly wasn't sure which) had set up so he'd be better able to help. Since they weren't touching, he wasn't getting anything clear from Sherlock, just an overall sense of general wellbeing. John was glad to make him happy.

Sherlock took his shoes off the second they reached the park. John had sighed, and collected the discarded shoes and socks. Sherlock hadn't wanted to wear them at all, and maintained that walking in bare feet wouldn't harm him anymore. John wasn't at all sure that was true, but managed to convince him it would look strange to walk all the way there with no shoes, and they didn't want to draw attention to themselves again, and he'd reluctantly agreed.

He briefly checked the water and the fish in the pond but, satisfied, did nothing else. The boy seemed to have done what he said and not told anyone, because there were no reports of the magical healing properties of the pond, which was good, because they didn't exist anyway. He continued wandering about the park, stopping occasionally at a bush or tree before moving along again. John watched anxiously. So anxiously, that he didn't even notice the woman sit beside him. 

"Which one's yours?" she asked, and honestly, John thought it was obvious. He had his own socks and shoes on, and yet was clutching another grown mans pair. Sherlock was more or less the only lone man in the park, and he was the only one without shoes. Sherlock would have had a scathing comment. John just smiled and pointed. He was examining the large tree at the edge of the park now, about fifty or so paces from the bench where John sat. The woman nodded, pity filling her eyes, and John immediately felt his defenses rise. "I have a niece," she said. "Autistic, poor dear. It's nice though, that they let him out. Are you his doctor?" John tightened his jaw. 

"I'm his friend. And he isn't autistic. He's been through a trauma." The woman started backpedaling. 

"Oh, I am so sorry." She coughed slightly, then looked back at the tree to change the subject. "It's a shame, what's happened to that tree. It died about three years ago. Well. Started dying. They're going to cut it down. I grew up with that tree though." She sighed. "It's at least a hundred years old. Lot of history there." She sighed again, recalling picnics, stolen kisses, a tire swing that had long since been removed. Sherlock glanced over at them. John stood suddenly, and Sherlock turned and put both hands on the rough bark. "Is he going to try and push it over?" the woman asked, bemused. 

"No," muttered John. "Sherlock don't you dare," he added, pushing the thought toward his friend with all his might, but Sherlock ignored him, and pushed slightly. And there was a loud _crack_ , and Sherlock was sauntering away from a tree, old and gnarled and very much alive, looking very pleased with himself. John scowled at him and Sherlock strolled over to him and grinned widely. One of these days, thought John, he'd learn not to tell Sherlock not do do things. Sherlock hadn't lost his contrariness. Or at the very least, he'd finally regained it, and he seemed to take immense pleasure in doing the exact opposite of what John wanted. 

Though, technically, he supposed Sherlock was more or less doing whatever it was that he wanted, and ignoring what John wanted. Sherlock frowned and put a hand on his shoulder. "No," he said. That wasn't it at all. "I fixed it. It was sad, and people were sad, and I fixed it." He could explain it better without the english words, but John wanted him to speak aloud as much as possible, and though the words still felt stiff and heavy on his tongue, but he wanted to show that it wasn't just being contrary that made him happy. He could do what John wanted too.

The woman looked nonplussed, and then awed. "Was that you?" she asked, breathlessly. "You made the tree alive again?"

He tilted his head slightly. "It wasn't all the way dead. I…" he struggled for the right english word, and not finding it, substituted. "Helped it."

"My niece," she said, slowly. "She's…could you fix her?" John frowned again, and Sherlock mimicked his expression.

"I only fix what's broken," he said. "I see your niece." He tapped her forehead. "Nothing broken with her. She's happy." He scowled at the woman. "Come John." And he grabbed his shoes away from the man and strode away, making John jog after him. 

"You okay mate?" he asked, a little breathless as he caught up to Sherlock's furious strides. 

"The girl is fine," he grumbled. "Happy, not broken. Good with singing. Nothing to fix." He grabbed John and with a flap of invisible wings and a rush of air, they were back at Baker Street. John stumbled, coughing. He hated that method of travel. Sherlock had collapsed on the floor. 

"I fix things John," he whispered. "I fix dead things, and dying and sick….why am I still _broken?_ " And John wrapped his arms around Sherlock, and held him close, closing his eyes. He never wanted to see that lost, distraught expression. Not ever again.

"You aren't broken," he whispered. "Not irreparably. You fix yourself every day. You let me help you. You let Mycroft help when I cannot. Don't ever think you're broken Sherlock. Because you are picking yourself up. And gluing yourself back together, and there is no way you could do that if you were unfixable." 

Sherlock leaned against John and clutched at his shirt, closing his eyes. He could feel the warmth, the concern, the love, rolling off of John. He could feel how much John believed what he was saying. Not broken, not shattered. Just a bit cracked. And he was getting better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's taken me forever to get this up. Sorry about that. This might be the last for real chapter. I might do one more, set a few years in the future and put in some Johnlock slash, but....I guess that depends on demand? So. Unless I get hit with a real good idea, this is it. I might do ficlets in this universe of various extras.  
> I hope you weren't too disappointed.
> 
> Also, if you caught the supernatural cameos....good on you. Like I said before, this story isn't really a Supernatural Crossover, more of a fusion, with elements taken from it. However, I couldn't really help myself here. So. Some characters found their way in, though not by name.


	12. Renew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is...not really an update. Just a sort of sum-up epilogue. There is no smut....sorry.   
> If people really want me to try and write a sexy chapter, I'll add ficlets to this universe. More torture, more sex, more recovery or fluff...whatever people want.   
> If people want to do art or something...they can, just reference the fic.   
> Um. Awesome, thanks for reading. Enjoy.

Sherlock lounged on the sofa, staring a little blankly at the ceiling. This used to frighten John more than it did now. It still unnerved him, because he didn't know where Sherlock went in his mind when he zoned out like that. 

But Sherlock always came out of it on his own now. Sometimes faster than others, sometimes looking a bit frightened or unnerved, but always...with a sort of air of contentment at the same time. John had asked what he did, when he 'went away' into his head. Sherlock said he was reorganizing his mind palace. 

Making sense of what had happened to him. He remembered all of it, with startling, horrifying clarity. But now...now he could face it. He didn't run away anymore. He faced it, locked it up in his mind palace, kept it, and himself, safe from James Moriarty's influence. 

Lestrade kept a close watch on them as well. He fed them files sometimes, but he hadn't asked Sherlock out on another case. Sherlock hadn't asked to go on one either. John was patient. Sherlock would get bored, he was sure of it. Bored and the experiments would start, cases, maybe. 

Lately...he'd been organizing his mind palace. Making sure he wouldn't...descend into madness like that again.

The experiments were on hold though. John had come in once to see Sherlock staring in horror at a finger scalpel in hand, a cut made in the finger pad. No blood. So it had been from a corpse then, one already embalmed. But Sherlock had looked sick. John gently removed the scalpel from his hand, disposed of the finger and led Sherlock over to the couch, where he'd held him close as the angel shook for several long minutes. Once he came back to himself, Sherlock professed to be angry at John; railed at him for getting rid of the finger. But he was relieved, and John could tell. It took the sting out of the tirade. 

But he had played his violin yesterday, long and loud and lovely. John had sat back in his armchair and just smiled, letting the music carry him. He'd woken in his own bed (Sherlock? Must've carried him). There was an indent on the pillow next to him. He wondered how long Sherlock had lain there, watched him sleep. He walked down the stairs, and Sherlock pointed to the table. A mug of tea, steaming. It was perfect, and John smiled. The kettle hadn't been touched. At some point, Sherlock would do too much, reveal himself to the wrong person, but for this....for little touches, kind actions...it was beautiful. It was Sherlock saying 'thank you.' It was Sherlock saying 'I love you.' Even if he never said the words, John didn't need to hear them. 

There was a knock on the door, and Sherlock shook himself slightly, sitting up, straightened his shirt as a young woman hurried into the room. "Mr Holmes," she said, "Doctor Watson. I know you don't...really take cases anymore, your landlady was quite adamant, but...it's really serious, I wouldn't have come if..." she broke off with a sob. John stilled, watching Sherlock as he sat forward, taking the woman in. 

"Sit down," he said. "And tell me your case."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo....the end?   
> Sorry, bit anticlimactic, I know. I just...don't like seeing the unfinished story sitting in my Works collection. So. Here I go. Posting the story.
> 
> Like I said, if people want more stories in the universe, I will write some. I am not married to it either, and if people are inspired...that's wonderful. I would like to be linked, obviously, if people use this story as an inspiration or what have you, but...mostly, I wouldn't mind seeing more stories of this type at all. I love the Sherlock!Angel idea. I don't see enough of it. And I love Sherlock!Whump. 
> 
> But...this is the end of this particular segment. Let me know what you think!


End file.
